General Butterfield was not pleased with the old military call “Extinguish the Lights“, feeling that it was not conducive to rest at the days end. With the help of the brigade bugler, Oliver Norton, Butterfield wrote Taps while in camp at Harrison's Landing, Virginia, following the Seven Day's battle during the Peninsular Campaign of 1862. The call sounded that night in July, 1862, soon spread to other units.  By 1863 it became a standard call of the end of the day used by both armies, North and South.

In March 1865, he was made Major General of the Army, a merit few non-West Point graduates ever reached.  He remained in the army four years after the war ended.

In 1886 he married the widow Julia L. James and settled in their estate of Craigside in Cold Spring. He was active in many business dealings but always had a great interest in the community of his adopted hometown.  On his death in 1901, though not a graduate of the military academy, under a special waiver by the War Department, he was interred at West Point with honors.