By 1760, the family had moved to the frontier at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where Thomas and his sons manufactured long rifles and became friends with Daniel Morgan.

By the 1770s, Richard Butler and his brother William were important traders at Fort Pitt in Pennsylvania and in Ohio.

At the outset of the American Revolution, the Continental Congress named Richard Butler a commissioner in 1775 to negotiate with the Indians.

He visited representatives of the Delaware, Shawnee, and other tribes to secure their support, or at least neutrality, in the war with Britain.

On July 20, 1776, Butler was commissioned a major in the 8th Pennsylvania Regiment in the Continental Army, serving first as second in command to his friend Daniel Morgan.

At the victory dinner for his officers, George Washington raised his glass and toasted, "The Butlers and their five sons!"

After the war, the Confederation Congress put Richard Butler in charge of Indians of the Northwest Territory.

[2] In 1791, Butler was commissioned a major general in the levies (i.e. militiamen conscripted into Federal service) under Major General Arthur St. Clair to fight against the Western Confederacy of Native Americans in the Northwest Territories (modern day Ohio).

A miniature portrait of Richard Butler was painted by "The Painter of The Revolution," Colonel John Trumbull, in 1790 and is in the collection of Yale University.