Frank G. Butterfield

He held the skirmish line while his regiment escaped danger.

Franklin George Butterfield was born at Rockingham, Vermont, in 1842. He entered Middlebury College in 1859, but the Civil War interrupted his education. In October 1861 he enlisted as a private in the 6th Vermont Infantry. The student who left college before graduation rose through commissioned rank while serving with one of the Union army's Vermont regiments.

By May 1863 he was a first lieutenant. During the Chancellorsville campaign, his regiment fought at Salem Heights, near Fredericksburg, Virginia. On 4 May the Union force was in danger, and the regiment needed to move away from its exposed position. A withdrawal under pressure required men to remain facing the enemy while their comrades changed position behind them.

Butterfield took command of the skirmish line. His task was to sustain that protective screen long enough for the regiment to extricate itself. The official Medal of Honor citation recognises the command he assumed and the withdrawal he covered: he “covered the movement of his regiment out of a precarious position” (Congressional Medal of Honor Society, official citation: https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/franklin-g-butterfield). The citation gives no separate account of a wound or personal capture; its emphasis is responsibility for the men holding the forward line.

His wartime service continued beyond Salem Heights. He served on the Vermont Brigade staff during the 1863 campaigns and became lieutenant-colonel commanding his regiment in October 1864, aged twenty-two. His Medal of Honor was awarded on 4 May 1891, twenty-eight years after the action.

After the war Butterfield returned to Vermont and mercantile work at Saxtons River. He also resumed legal studies. Public administration became another substantial part of his life: he supervised Vermont's 1880 census, investigated disputed census returns in South Carolina, and helped finish the national census work in Washington.

He transferred to the Bureau of Pensions in 1882 and eventually directed its special examination division. In 1892 he resigned to concentrate on private business in Vermont, joining his brother in the manufacture of taps, dies and other cutting tools at Derby Line. His postwar career combined veterans' affairs, federal investigation and industrial enterprise.

Butterfield died on 6 January 1916 and was buried at Saxtons River Cemetery. His life extended from an interrupted college education through regimental command to the civilian administration of the generation that had fought the war.