>> From the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.
>> Welcome to the Whittall Pavilion.
This room was built by Mrs. Gertrude Clarke Whittall,
who was a very important patron of the music divisions
who bought our Stradivari instrument collection,
which is as you can see is partially missing because they're being used
in rehearsals at the moment.
My name is Nicholas Brown.
I am a Music Specialist and Concert Producer in the Music Division.
I've been particularly involved with our public programs relating
to the Civil War in America,
which is of course is our landmark exhibit upstairs.
And thank you all, my colleagues from IPO who I've been working
with over the past year and a half or so on those events.
IPO is Interpretive Programs Office, and they are responsible for all
of the major exhibits here at the Library.
So without further ado, I want to introduce a couple of guests.
First thank my boss Suvita [phonetic] for the continued support
to be able to do these kinds of things.
I really appreciate it.
Then I also want to introduce to you two very special folks who are going
to be sharing the presentation with me.
First off we have Master Sergeant Allyn Van Patten,
who is the Principal Special Bugler
for the United States Army Band Pershing's Own,
which therefore makes him the most important trumpeter
in the entire United States Army in my humble opinion.
And so it's a great honor to have him here.
He has played Taps for pretty much everyone.
Every visiting dignitary to the United States
over the past 20 years or so.
And then we also have Jari Villanueva,
who is basically the Taps guru in the world and expert
on bugle calls in the United States.
And it is such an honor to have him here today.
He's going to share some of his thoughts later on.
Jari is the Director of the Taps for Veterans Project,
which is a very important project that seeks to connect families
that need buglers for military burials,
with buglers from all over the country.
And that's a very important service
because the military just doesn't have the manpower
to cover the thousands of funerals
that are happening on a weekly basis.
I mean I'll get into some controversy related to all that
and one of the important reasons why Taps for Veterans exists.
Jari was also a trumpeter and bugler
for the United States Air Force Band, and he's responsible
for pretty much every commemoration of Taps that goes
on around the country, and every bugler knows who he is.
And anyone that studies Civil War music knows who he is.
So thank you Jari for being here.
He's also brought several items from his personal collection,
which you'll be able to check out on display later on,
including the Civil War era bugle
that is right there made in Philadelphia.
And it's in great shape.
And he actually uses that frequently to play Taps.
So, why Daniel Butterfield, why Taps, why me?
I grew up in a family of history buffs, and my father always used
to tell me that we're related to Butterfield,
or related to General Butterfield.
Who is General Butterfield?
He is the guy who is credited with arranging Taps
in the form that we know it today.
I say arranging because of certain reasons which I'll get into later,
but there's been a lot of controversy of, was he a composer?
No he wasn't a musician.
He didn't actually physically write down the notes himself.
He had his bugler write them down, Oliver Wilcox Norton.
But anyway, going back into the reason why I am doing this.
My father's mother was a Butterfield.
And we are related somewhat distantly, but if you go back
to the generation where Daniel Butterfield was in the Civil War,
we were cousins in my mind.
And then everyone goes back to the Butterfields that came
over from England in the 17th century.
Particularly Benjamin Butterfield III.
He was the first one.
And they settled in Massachusetts.
And then they kind of spread out all over the country.
And even up to Canada, there were some of them in the 18th century
who were a bit too loyalist for modern taste.
So they left to not get shot or such.
Anywho, they eventually came back, and then the grandfather
of my grandmother served in the Civil War, but there's no evidence
that he had any interaction with Daniel during the war.
He was kind of more lowly and infantry like.
So I've always had this fascination with military music.
I've served in the Army Bands.
I did six years in the Army National Guard Band in Massachusetts.
Now very pleased to continue my public service
as a musician here at the library.
And this is the perfect place and the perfect time
because of this sesquicentennial to address Taps and Butterfield.
And there's so much to know about Daniel Butterfield that I'm going
to gloss over it, but there's a lot for you to jump on to.
And my goal at the end of this is for you to be interested
in him enough to maybe think about him.
To go into books and learn more about him.
Because he's not very much covered on the level of people
like General Meade, General Hooker, General Grant, etcetera, etcetera.
But he was one of the most important generals in the entire Union army.
He was Chief of Staff to the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg.
It doesn't get more important than that.
Especially those of us here in D.C. that know that Chiefs
of Staff are really the ones behind the lead figures.
So he's a very interesting character, and I'll get into some
of his contributions in a moment.
Just the broad picture here is I want you to consider the role
that Taps has in American culture, beyond the military ceremonies.
I mean there's a great Walt Whitman poem called Beat, Beat Drums.
And I just want to read one excerpt from it.
It was published in 1861.
And of course the Library has a very fond relationship
with Walt Whitman's papers and collection and such.
And his satchel that he actually used in the Civil War is
on display upstairs at the exhibit.
So do check that out before you leave.
That exhibit is up until January 4th.
So here is this third stanza of Beat, Beat Drums.
Beat, beat drums.
Blow bugles blow.
Make no parley.
Stop for no expostulation.
Mind not the timid.
Mind not the weeper or prayer.
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man.
Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties.
Make even the trestles to shake the dead
where they lie awaiting the hearses.
So strong you thump oh terrible drums.
So loud you bugles blow.
It's a very dark poem, especially if you read the first two stanzas.
But it's connecting the idea of music and sound with death.
And Taps of course is nowadays used for ceremonies of funerals.
And also for veteran's commemorations,
you always hear it played.
But that's just an interesting sort of literary reference
to see how bugling and this kind of art form really is interspersed
in very formal military tradition,
and then also in the artistic side of things.
And it was printed in Harper's Weekly.
And here you can see the actual printing of that poem.
Okay. So Daniel Butterfield.
This is the first source material that I ever handled of his.
And it's actually by his wife.
It's a compilation of his military career records that she still had
or wanted to release to the public.
And also several of his speeches transcribed.
You can buy it nowadays as a reprinted book.
And you can also sometimes find the first edition.
You can see over there my modern reprint of it.
And then also Jari was kind enough to bring
in his own copy of the first edition.
Which it was a very limited print, I believe it was around 2,000, oh 400.
400 were made.
The Library has one in its collections,
and here you see our catalog number in the bottom left.
But again you can find it online as a PDF
through the HathiTrust, or HathiTrust.
So I found this book first when I was a child.
My Dad was doing his crazy genealogical work,
as he likes to do every two years or so.
And we found it at the Boston University Library.
And we started to get more familiar with Butterfield.
And then when I started to revisit all of this for this lecture,
I went ahead and bought my own copy there.
And here is one of the images of him from inside the book.
A lot of this artwork that you can see is slightly blurred,
are the images from the actual book, the engravings
that were printed originally.
So that's why they look slightly blurry like this.
So a bit of background on Daniel Butterfield.
He was born on October 31st, 1831 in Utica, New York.
And he had a very illustrious father,
who is enterprising and a hard worker.
And I'd like to say this is what runs in the family.
His name was John Butterfield,
and he started off as a stagecoach driver.
So, service work down at the bottom of the totem pole.
Eventually he started building these networks of stagecoach drivers,
started getting more entrepreneurial,
eventually got involved in this giant merger
that became American Express.
If I had that money, I probably wouldn't be working here.
But. So not closely related enough.
But it was a very important thing, American Express,
back in those days was doing mail delivery
and express package delivery.
And then the other company that came out of John Butterfield's work
at this time was the Overland Stagecoach Company.
Daniel went to Union College in Schenectady,
which became a very close philanthropic effort that his family
and his wife contributed to later on in life.
He graduated at the age of 18, and he had,
I believe finished law school as well as part
of that undergraduate education.
So he graduated in 1849, and in his vanderlust [phonetic] years he
explored the west with a Native American guide as you do.
Clearly had some money going on.
He also went down into the south and got
to see slavery in action firsthand.
And he was very outspoken at the time about how slavery was awful.
And this was perhaps a good thing for a Union General to be witnessing
and experiencing as a young man.
He later in his youth started to work for his father's companies.
He held the post of Eastern District Superintendent for American Express.
So that would have been a very, you know,
senior managerial position overseeing the eastern operations
of that company.
How much work he actually did in that I don't know.
But it was certainly an impressive position to hold
as a 20-something I would think.
And yes, it was probably daddy's doing.
Later on I think he kind of started to realize he needed to contribute
to society in a greater way.
And he joined the New York State Militia.
And this was prior to the war.
He enlisted first as a private, and then there's this interesting thing
where he goes up and down in rank.
Beginning before the war and then throughout the war
and even after the war.
And that was because of various promotions into active army service
versus militia service, which is nowadays National Guard Service.
So for example, the previous Adjutant General of Massachusetts,
General Carter, bit of a scandal there but,
he got the Major General rank as a state commission,
but according to US Army, he was only a Brigadier General.
So in the state you're allowed to hold higher ranks
than the federal system allows you.
And so that's a bit of explanation about that, because you'll see
and throughout the talk he'll go up and down and up and down
between Lt. Colonel and Major General.
And it's an interesting thing.
So, he eventually gets to the rank of First Sargent.
And this is just about as the war is going to break out.
And he musters up this company of, or regiment actually,
the 12th New York Militia Regiment.
And he is instantly promoted up to being their Colonel
after he was the First Sargent with zero experience
from between Private and First Sargent.
And I'm just going to jump ahead here a little bit.
Here we go.
So, he was also a bit of an opportunist.
He knew this war was coming.
And he knew that glory would come from being a gallant hero,
at least in appearance in the war.
So he brought down his New York regiment in early 1861,
and there was this huge network of bases surrounding Washington D.C.,
which was kind of the last ditch defensive layout.
And this is Camp Anderson.
And actually soldiers from his regiment encamped there.
And this was, all of these volunteers
from the states were coming into the capital waiting
for the action to start.
And waiting to serve and defend the capital.
And this is a sketch of his actual headquarters at Camp Anderson.
It's a little hard to see,
but you can see it's a little small, probably all wooded.
And you've got tables up there
which would have been presumably maps of the area and such.
This is a portrait of General Butterfield in 1861 as a Colonel
with the 12th New York Regiment.
And you can see from this, he's very into his appearance.
And this makes a lot of sense later
on when he's a bit New York socialite
and interesting things like that.
So this is a painting that depicts the advance
of his 12th New York Regiment into Virginia on May 24th, 1861.
He actually led the first Union troops across this bridge
into Virginia in the entirety of the Civil War conflict.
So that's one of his big things that his wife plays
up in the memoir unsurprisingly.
Then we get into some of the Matthew Brady photographs.
Of course Matthew Brady photographed every major figure
in the Civil War essentially.
And there are a lot of other ones that we'll see, but this is just one
to give you a little context here from the beginning.
And one of the things that's interesting, he's not really,
we don't get a precise date, at least from what I've seen.
We just get the range of the Civil War years.
And then I would think okay, let's look at the rank.
And then see what that tells us.
But that really actually won't narrow it down so much
because he was going back and forth between the brevet ranking
of Major General and the Brigadier General.
My guess though on this one, because he looks less battle hard is
that it was earlier on, perhaps 1861 or early 1862.
So later on in 1861, he started off as Lt. Colonel in the 12th Infantry
of New York, or the 12th New York State Militia.
He was a full Colonel.
Then he got switched over to Active Army Service and became Lt. Colonel
of the 12th Infantry, which was different.
And then after that, he got promoted
to Brigadier General of US Volunteers.
So again, on the sort of National Guard Citizen's Soldiers side
of things.
And then in 1862, he first got Major General rank.
And then yet again, he went down to Colonel of US Infantry,
because that Major General rank was with the volunteers.
And then later on he went back to Brigadier General and Major General.
Just hang here for one second.
This is a sketch of his winter quarters, I believe into 1862,
just to give you a bit of context here.
Tents, outdoor life, typical of what we think for a Civil War.
And now in the timeline we're getting into 1862.
And think about July, 1862 as being very important for Taps.
And we'll get back to that in just one second.
But before that I want to introduce you to his Medal of Honor.
General Butterfield was awarded the Medal of Honor for action
at Gaines' Mill, Virginia on 27 June 1862.
And the citation read, "He seized the colors
of the 83rd Pennsylvania Volunteers at a critical moment, and,
under a galling fire of the enemy,
encouraged the depleted ranks to be renewed."
I mean his actual medal is in the collections
of the National Museum of American History.
So if you are very interested, you are welcome to go see it over there.
So, perhaps he was this privileged, privileged young man
who then entered military service as a lot of people do.
I think that go into be officers, going to get me in trouble.
We're all enlisted [inaudible] in the front.
The, he found his glory.
This was his hero moment, and he was actually a very good soldier,
and he would not have been promoted to the Chief of Staff position
for General Meade if he had not been a good soldier.
And his men, at least from the accounts that I have read,
considered him to be a very tough commander,
but they really loved him.
And they felt dedicated to him.
And there's a very funny thing with his brigade bugle call
that I will share with you in a moment.
So I'll give you a little cliffhanger there.
Hang on. This was actually a drawing that was given to Butterfield
by the Prince de Joinville, and he was an interesting character.
He served under Butterfield during the war.
His full name was Francois Ferdinand Philippe Louis Marie d'Orleans,
prince de Joinville, Joinvee [phonetic], sorry.
And he was a problematic figure in France
because he was opposing Napoleon politically.
And he was a member of the Count of Orleans' family.
Because there was pressure when Napoleon took over
and became dictator, the Prince came to the United States
with his son and two nephews.
And he basically offered himself up to the US Government
for military service as Lafayette had.
So that's kind of the model t here.
And he served under Butterfield.
And in 1870 he went back to France and served in the National Assembly.
And kind of survived the political situation
over there after the Civil War.
Just one neat quote that I found from General Lee,
"I don't believe we can have an army without music."
So for anyone that ever catches wind of funding battles that go
on for cutting military music, please use this quote as a citation
or a lead in for your members of Congress.
But I'm not officially asking you to do that.
But music has always been an integral part in military tradition,
if only for, nowadays it's more for the pomp of circumstance side
and also public outreach.
But at this time in the Civil War, the bugle calls and the drums
and the field music were an integral part in field action.
So the drummers and the buglers all had these calls which would,
you know, tell the troops to turn left.
Tell them to, you know, right flank.
To fire, to load, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
And what ended up happening was the standardization was lacking
across the board.
Even within each side.
So within the Union army, there was some consistency with things
like Tattoo, but then there were dozens and dozens of other calls.
So if you're out on a battlefield with units from all
over the country, not following the same calls, and everything's going
on at once, you don't know what to do.
So, Daniel Butterfield had a solution to this,
which we will see in a second.
I just want to show you here some
of the Library's Liljenquist Civil War images.
Here are a couple of buglers.
Here's a mounted Calvary bugler here.
And I'm going to, okay.
So the other interesting figure in understanding Butterfield
and Taps is Oliver Wilcox Norton.
And he was actually Butterfield's bugler in 1862.
And the story goes that there was a newspaper article in the later 1800s
that was questioning the origin of Taps,
because by this point it had been established
as official military doctrine, as being the extinguished lights call.
And Norton saw this article in the paper, and he wrote back
to the paper and said, well by the way,
I was actually the one that wrote this down.
And I started it out with General Butterfield.
And up to that point General Butterfield had,
at least what we see today, had not made any public, you know,
demand of credit for Taps or Extinguished Lights
as it was originally known.
So Norton then gives the credit to General Butterfield
and tells the paper that they need to get in touch with him.
And eventually the paper gets word
of General Butterfield's contributions from his own mouth.
I mean all these primary sources are available online, so if you want
to check really into it, you can do that.
And at the moment I'm going to plug Jari's forthcoming book,
which I'm sure is going to include all of this.
And I'm sure he'll tell us a little bit about that later.
But eventually, Oliver Wilcox Norton rose
through the ranks, became an officer.
He served with gallantry and so on and so forth.
But he also realized that he was forever going
to be connected with Taps.
At least he wanted to be.
And he pretty much has except for various rumors that pop up every now
and then about different possible origins of Taps.
I'm not going to get too much into those, but they're available,
particularly in that small Taps book over there,
you can read about some of those.
Basically, I think most people have decided
that General Butterfield is the one, based on the sources that exist.
I would posit that we should not call him the composer of it,
because all he really did was arrange preexisting notes
from the Tattoo call, which we're going to hear momentarily.
But he adjusted the timing, and he cut the bugle call down.
But really the notes that were used are the open notes
on a modern trumpet.
But they're, on a bugle they were sort of the most natural
and easy pitches to play.
So you have everything on the C are [inaudible],
there's C, G and E and such.
Let's see if we can get to the brigade call here.
There we go.
See there's some images of Oliver Wilcox Norton here.
On the left you see him in 1861 in April at the beginning of the war.
And then on the right you see him circa 1903
as a much more stately figure sporting his medals there.
And at this moment, I would love
to introduce again Master Sergeant Van Patten.
Again, he is the Principal Special Bugler
of United States Army Band, Pershing's Own.
And he's going to join us up here to play some of the musical examples.
The first thing we're going to do is look
at what's called Butterfield's Brigade Call.
This was the first bugle call
that he introduced and received credit for.
Basically, as we were mentioning earlier,
there were so many calls happening out on the fields
that soldiers were getting confused.
They didn't know what to do.
The Confederates were playing some of the same calls.
And you know, from either side you had no idea what was going on.
So what General Butterfield decided
to do was create a preparatory command, bugle call,
and in military speak, there's always a preparatory command
and a command of execution.
So whether it's forward march, you have forward and then march.
Or present arms or order arms or parade rest, etcetera.
So what Butterfield did was he created this call
which is soldiers could then identify as subsequent call
as being his order on the battlefield.
So no matter what, any bugle call that was intended for his troops
to hear would receive this preparatory command first.
So Master Allyn Van Patten is going to play that for us.
>> Not as loud as Mr. Whitman did.
>> Yeah. That's okay.
[ Music ]
Thank you.
So interestingly of course, the soldiers being, you know,
under a high pressure situation, needed to enjoy themselves.
So when they were happy with the General, they came up with a tune
that matched the song, or the call.
Dan, Dan, Dan, Butterfield, Butterfield.
Dan, Dan, Dan, Butterfield, Butterfield.
And when they were angry at him, it was Damn, damn, damn,
Butterfield, Butterfield.
Damn, damn, damn, Butterfield, Butterfield.
So, interesting.
Typical soldiers, you know, even if you love your commander, you know,
there are moments when he's sending you in to get shot at.
So. There's going to be a bit of interest there.
So then we segue back to Taps.
And Tattoo was at that time, what's known as Tattoo now,
was the call for extinguished lights,
which was to mark the end of the day.
People were supposed to shut off their candles, etcetera,
or blow out their candles.
The Tattoo that was used at the time is not this one that's up here.
This is the modern one that was later adopted.
But the 1861 version of Tattoo,
there are various theories for the origin of this.
But the prevailing one is traces back to the Dutch.
It's called [foreign title], and it was originally played on the drums.
And this was, for the military posts, a drummer would go
out in the town and play this call, and all the pubs would know
to shut off all the taps and send the soldier's home.
So, eventually this becomes Tattoo
in the United States, or Extinguish Lights.
And so first let's hear that 1861 version please.
[ Music ]
Thank you.
I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like go to bed.
It sound more like, okay, have a couple last sips of the beer
and run home or else you're going to get in trouble.
So what General Butterfield did is he was not happy with this call.
It being appropriate for the setting.
And he then, it was July, 1862, he was with the Army of the Potomac
in camp at Harrison's Landing, which is also known as,
Berkley Plantation is specifically where he was.
And this property belonged to the Harrison family of both presidents.
And they traced back to a signer of the Declaration of Independence
and colonial big figures and such.
So, the story according to Norton, which is the best primary source
that we have, if one appropriates this version of the origin of Taps,
is that Butterfield summoned Norton to his camp
and "whistling some tune, asked the bugler to sound it for him."
There was some back and forth about how long the notes would last for,
whether they would repeat, etcetera.
And then "and the notes were finally scribbled on the back
of an envelope, and a call was arranged to suit the General."
Within a few months, a lot
of different units appropriated this call
for Extinguished Lights, the new Taps.
Which was known as Extinguished Lights then.
It didn't get the name Taps until later on.
But before the end of the Civil War,
Confederate troops were even using it interestingly.
Because there were so many instances where they were just
across the river, even here where it was first played.
Just across the river they're hearing all the bugle calls
that the other side is doing.
And everyone seemed to like General Butterfield's call more
than the previous one.
In fact, the nickname of modern Taps is Butterfield's Lullaby.
And curiously, not so curiously however if you've been
in the military, there are accounts of soldiers kind of treating Taps
like I treated it when I went to military academy.
Okay, lights are out in the hallway, and you have to, you know,
stop making noise and such.
You go to your room and are supposed to be going to bed.
But then you're doing work, or watching TV or something.
So here's an account from a soldier in the 14th New Hampshire
who gives us an accurate sentiment
of what troops would actually do after they heard Taps.
"It often occurred that said executor of Taps law was no more
than three-tenths away before the candles were lighted again.
And penny ante progressed, necessitating another tour
of the camp by the irate sergeant.
And something else sometimes happened
for the audacious gamester exchanged his fun
for a night in the guardhouse."
So I think that's basically saying, okay, you're supposed to go to bed
after Taps, but people were still causing a ruckus.
And then some of them would get dragged out to guard duty
by the sergeant because they were being a pain
in the tuckus [phonetic] to say the least.
So, before we play Taps, I would love for you
to hear the modern version of Tattoo, which nowadays is,
when it is played in a certain standard rundown of bugle calls,
is played about 15 minutes prior to the sounding of Taps.
So this is the announcement, okay, calm down soon.
But then you're supposed to be more ready by the time Taps is played.
So we'll hear the modern version of Tattoo.
[ Music ]
One note about Berkley Plantation
where Butterfield actually arranged the call, it was the location
of the first bourbon whiskey to be distilled in the United States
in approximately 1621, 1622.
So for those that are into that.
That's an important fact.
So rapidly in the Civil War,
the units across both armies were appropriating Taps.
And it is said that by the latter part of 1863, the furthest units
which were on the western fronts had already appropriated it.
It did not become official doctrine until later
in the 1860s, is that correct?
Or was it the 1870s?
>> 1870s.
>> 1870s. So and you'll actually be able to see over here
in bugling manuals the progression of both Tattoo and Taps
when it was known as Extinguished Lights.
And later on actually known as taps.
Which is of course just short
of that original Dutch [foreign title], name of the drum call.
Okay, so before we hear Taps itself,
I don't know what is going on with this computer.
Okay. So this is Taps as notated in Norton's book.
So this is as close to the source as we could possibly get.
And it also has some lyrics underneath that he says are one
of the first sets of lyrics.
As with anything, lyrics morphed a lot.
So this is the one that Norton put down,
but there are also other version that are more familiar to us
such as day is done, gone the sun, from the lakes,
from the hills, from the sky.
All is well.
Safely rest.
God is nigh.
And then there are actually various stanzas of the tune,
and presumably people would go around singing it as such.
So, we're going to now hear Taps.
And it's very important in military tradition,
and in civilian tradition as well.
You hear it throughout your lives.
Even if it's just in a background setting.
But during the Civil War it started to be used
for the military funerals, unofficially or otherwise.
And there are theories that it was actually played
at Stonewall Jackson's funeral, because that fits into the timeline.
But I think we're still lacking some of the evidence that we need
to 100 percent say that it happened.
The familiar stories that I believe was 18,
it might have been later 1862 or early 63 that a cannoneer was shot
on the Union, or he was hit with a cannon ball in Virginia,
near the James River where the Berkley Plantation was.
And the Confederates were again, just on the other side of the river.
And the officer in charge of this young soldier
who was killed didn't want to alert the other side
that they had actually succeeded in killing anyone.
So, traditionally it would have just been three rifle volleys
like we still have the 21-gun salute.
However, this commander was being very savvy and he thought, okay,
why not just do the lights out call
so that the enemy doesn't know they succeeded in killing anyone.
So, again, we're not finding enough evidence to say 100 percent
that this happened, but that's sort of the general accepted version
of when it was first used as a burial.
And today, it's also used in ceremonies
for honoring veterans and such.
So I would ask that you please rise as we play Taps,
as it is appropriate protocol for it.
And here we go.
[ Music ]
Please be seated.
Thank you.
Thank you [inaudible].
So as you can probably tell, Taps can get very emotional,
especially for those that have served in the military
or are connected to military members.
It's also become sort of an integral part in our American civil religion,
if you want to say that that such a thing exists.
So that's the idea of being patriotic or,
and that doesn't mean you're a flag-waving patriot.
It just means you have a sense of what it means to be an American.
And whatever that means.
Whether it means, you know, protests either party.
Or work for the parties.
But it's a very important part of our culture.
And we're going to get to some examples of how it's
in popular culture today and also important historical renderings
of Taps.
This, I just want to show you,
this is the current US Army guidance for Taps.
Which they have a great website, music.army.mil/music/buglecalls
where you can see all of the current calls
that are protocol on US Armies.
So you actually see here dynamics and crescendi that they've put in,
and also a tempo marking.
Now I'm going to get into a bit more about Butterfield postwar
because it's really interesting.
But before I do that, just want to mention how really nowadays,
Taps isn't used on the field except
for honoring soldiers that have fallen.
It is used on some bases to mark the end of the duty day,
and it's played on a PA system.
And that also varies a lot from post to post.
For example, retreat into the colors,
which sort of marks the actual end of the duty day
and evening before dinner or chow is different on Army posts
than on Air Force posts for example.
A lot of Air Force posts play the anthem at that time rather
than to the colors and retreat.
So there are a lot of differences between the service branches,
but Taps is very standard as the one for honoring the fallen.
And some places do still play it as the end of the actual day.
I know Hanscom Air Force Base plays the recording at something
like 2200 hours or 2100 hours to mark the evening there.
So this is another great image of General Butterfield
on his horse looking general-like.
But quite agile compared to other generals.
These are his horses.
Here is an image of him at Gettysburg, or a painting.
And actually at Gettysburg, which I was very lucky to go to a couple
of weeks ago, there are great memorials to him.
Again, a testament to Butterfield, he was responsible
for organizing the building of the memorial
and helping raise the money and so on and so forth.
So needless to say, he's quite prominent in his memorials.
It's very much his memorial.
And it sits up on Little Round Top at Gettysburg which is one of the,
of course, pivotal moments of the three-day battle.
And it's a memorial to all the New York regiments
that he was ever involved with, as well as some other ones.
So here you can see the 12th New York Regiment at Gettysburg.
And if you have not been
up to Little Round Top, I highly recommend it.
It has a beautiful view of the whole battlefield,
at least the main part there.
You can't see the northern bits that are above the town, but.
And here you see on the third bay of battle, General Daniel Butterfield,
who was as colonel, brought the 12th Regiment to the war was wounded
and disabled at headquarters as Chief of Staff of the army.
So he was wounded at Gettysburg.
And that very much shifted his trajectory.
He was first commanding a division,
and then was in his headquarters role there.
And following this injury, he was in more sort of a desk kind of work.
But they were still significant posts.
Here is just a rundown of the battles he fought in
or commanded troops, including Yorktown, Hanover Court House,
Mechanicsville, Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville,
Gettysburg, and even later on Lookout Mountain,
Mission Ridge, and Chattanooga.
It doesn't get more significant than that I think.
So, for those that did not know who he was as a general,
he is a pretty important general.
And please keep that in mind as you explore the Civil War.
And so this was the nice bronze plaque of himself that he had put
into the monument, or the memorial.
And here's the proof in the pudding.
In 1862, this thing was released, and it's called the Defenders
of our Union: 109 Commanders of the Union Army.
And this is the who's who of the Union Army command.
And Butterfield was included on this.
And this was before he was even in his role as Chief of Staff.
So nowadays you think, okay, what's going on over at the White House
or such, the Chief of Staff is the pivotal figure here,
making all the things happen underneath the figure head.
And this, of course, the army chief of staff still, etcetera, etcetera.
This is a sequence of images by Matthew Brady.
I'm just going to go through them rather briefly.
But they're rather striking.
And some of them kind of get you more of the human side of him,
or the harrier side as in this one.
Okay, so this is the general order in 1865
when Butterfield was mustered out of the army because of his injury.
He, as you can see there, had the rank of Major General.
And what's very interesting on this is that he was mustered
out with Abner Doubleday, who was another very important figure
in Civil War history, and of course, United States history,
credited incorrectly as inventing baseball
in Cooperstown prior to the war.
And he opened San Francisco's first cable car company and was said
to have fired the first shot at Fort Sumter, which I am suspicious of.
And Doubleday was actually, let's see.
He actually headed a recruiting service
in San Francisco as well after the war.
So, Butterfield then took post of Superintendent
of the Recruiting Service and Commander
of Troops in New York Harbor.
This is immediately following this general order of being mustered out.
And he resigned his commission from the army and the volunteers in 1870.
He went on to his illustrious career as a politico.
The first important post that he held after this was
as Assistant Treasurer of the United States
in charge of the New York office.
Not an insignificant post to hold.
As that, in that post he was the Treasurer for the New York office
and also headed the Assay Office,
which handled the purity tests and precious metals.
And he, "discharged his responsible duties
without the shadow of reproach."
However, there was a scandal.
And the scandal happened very quickly into his tenure.
Basically what happened, you can see here, I'll go to the summaries.
But these are the actual rulings from the two court cases
that were brought against him by the United States government,
which just enjoyed his service for a while there.
There were two cases.
First was case number 14703, and then was 704.
What happened in the first portion
of this was there was money missing from the Treasury.
And that is a bit of a problem for the Treasurer.
So on August 6, 1869, $100 in gold was found missing.
And August 21, 1869, $2,075 was found missing.
The Treasury Department claimed that Butterfield was responsible
for making up this gap in the funds, and he did not agree on that.
The United States Treasury then sued General Butterfield.
He resigned his post.
And eventually the US federal courts ruled in his favor saying that yes,
while that loss occurred under his supervision, he was not,
there was no evidence to say that he was personally the one responsible
for making those funds disappear in whatever form.
So they did not hold him accountable for that.
He didn't resume his post regardless
because I think it was a bit scandalous.
Very interestingly, I was chatting with Jari earlier,
his wife doesn't talk about any of this.
So, proof is in the pudding.
You can't rely on one primary source.
You have to go out and find other corroborating evidence,
as we all know.
Because we're all scholarly, right.
But if you get into the wonders
of our internet search engines these days, you can go in
and find all of these case rulings.
And I actually have the ruling in red,
the legal jargon, which is interesting.
But it's very neat.
And what was also interesting was the amount
of press coverage of this scandal.
General Butterfield was a huge figure in US society at that time.
Particularly in New York.
After the war he had a big,
fancy place in New York City on Fifth Avenue.
And then also his estate up by West Point.
And the second part of this scandal was revenue stamps.
As the Treasurer, when he would sell stamps,
he received a commission for these stamps.
And in the process of his getting his commissions for the stamps
that he had sold, the missing funds thing came up.
So basically the Treasury Department held,
withheld part of his money that he was owed.
He was only paid, as you can see here, $73,645 and was owed $83,481
after having sold 1.7 million in stamps.
And this is a huge amount of money for the 1870s, 1869, 1870.
So he claimed he was missing $9,000, $9,836.
The judge ruled on this one because it was kind of brought
in as a last ditch, by the Treasury Department.
They really didn't like that they were snubbed by General Butterfield.
So they put in the second case.
Again, the judge ruled in Butterfield's favor,
and he said that the Treasury Department had
to pay Butterfield what they owed him.
And that eventually happened.
But it put him in a precarious situation
with the federal government.
Otherwise, he would have probably been running
for major office and such.
Later on Butterfield becomes, I don't know who to equivocate it to,
but the figure like Michael Feinstein,
who is very close friend of the Library's.
He performs here sometimes, but he also is involved
in research projects with us and leads us
to collections and that sort of thing.
Butterfield was an important figure like that.
So he had this big trip where he went to Europe.
And over there, he was attending one of the big expositions in Paris.
And some people in the United States had tasked him with finding
out information about this Irish Saint.
And I'm going to find the name here momentarily.
Yes, St. Brendan, who was a 6th century Irish Saint.
And there were some people claiming
that this saint had actually discovered America before Columbus.
And here you can see a report that General Butterfield went to,
actually went to some of the principle libraries in Europe,
including the Bibliotheque Nationale, the British Museum,
the Bodleian at Oxford, and then also the library at Nuremberg.
And he went to see the source materials about St. Brendan to prove
or disprove these people's theory.
And he came back to the United States,
and his findings were covered in the papers
because he was a society figure, and he was this, you know,
former general going out to Europe representing the United States.
So perhaps I got some of my interest in this from him.
I doubt it.
But it's always interesting to see
that he was doing things beyond just fighting and politicking.
Interestingly, his political leverage was very important,
even though he was not in a position to run for office.
The New York Times always covered his political endorsements.
Including for, where did it go?
President McKinley and Robert Lincoln, and General Alger,
who were running for president at various times.
McKinley obviously won.
Other things that Butterfield did postwar was being very involved
with business.
He went back at one point to work
for his father's company, American Express.
And then he was also involved
with a government contract as people do these days.
So it's nothing new.
But people with political connections get involved
with contracting companies.
And then they get the corner on the market with the government.
And they have nice, fat contracts.
And then they live happily ever after.
He got the contract for the ferry service that ran people
from Ellis Island to Manhattan.
And his company, it was called Brooklyn Annex,
was the ferry company still in place up to the point
where Ellis Island burned.
And after that point, when it burned down,
the Treasury Department rescinded the contract saying
that your services are no longer needed because they were not going
to reopen Ellis Island in that form.
So, because we are running out of time, as I knew, I'm just going
to scoot through some other things.
He was very into diplomatic relations.
He liked to hold court basically at his estate in New York.
And he had all kinds of dignitaries
that he had developed relationships with, come to his estate
in the Hudson River Valley.
Examples of people that have come to his home were the Duke of Orleans,
the Count of Paris, who actually served
under Butterfield during the war, another marquee,
and then there was actually a giant delegation of Russian naval officers
who came up the river in their ship and went to a party at his house,
which is quite fascinating.
I don't think we would allow that to happen anymore.
Unfortunately for Russia.
At his New York home actually held a lot of diplomatic dinners,
including for the Austrian Minister.
And his home was at 65th Avenue in New York.
A new building was built in 1926, and it was the home of Forbes,
it was the headquarters of Forbes.
And then NYU actually bought the building for 65 million in 2010.
The New York Times would cover these dinners.
And on one dinner when that Austrian foreign minister was there,
they reported that, "this was one
of the most elaborate home dinners given this season.
It was a color dinner, and the color was pink.
That was the theme.
There were white tables covered with pink roses,
and eight foot long mirror in the center.
Louis XIV candelabra with pink shades and candles,
and a basket at the end of each table with wide pink satin ribbon
and filled with pink roses."
Needless to say, his wife was the one doing all this.
But she very much enjoyed the socialite life.
I'm going to get to her.
Her name was Julia Lorillard Butterfield.
She had a previous marriage to a Mr. James.
And Mr. James had a lot of money, but he passed away,
and she ended up having all the money.
And then she married Butterfield I believe in 1886.
Yes, 1886.
She was an American living in London.
They married in Westminster.
And the society pages in the United States as far away
as St. Louis were covering this marriage.
So it goes to show that he was considered an important figure,
and he has been kind of lost in obscurity in history here.
This wedding was a surprise to all of their numerous friends.
But Mrs. Butterfield is very much the reason
that so much does exist about, well the amount that does exist
about Butterfield out there in the ether of scholarly source materials.
It's because of her.
She was the force behind building this monument in New York,
which sits in Sakura Park, which is located there in Manhattan
on the west side, right next to Manhattan School of Music ironically
at 122 and Clermont and Riverside.
As is typical of the Butterfields, there was a huge scandal with this.
The person that built the,
or designed the monument was actually the same person,
John Gutzon Borglum who designed Mt. Rushmore.
So clearly, Butterfield is not so insignificant.
The company that then was charged with executing the construction,
they went ahead with the designer's plans.
But Mrs. Butterfield did not like the results.
And there were a lot of changes to the monument that happened.
This ran up the bill.
And there's one famous spot where the designer said
that basically the only thing was un-messed
with by Mrs. Butterfield was the head.
And he actually is said to have inscribed his name
up on the head I believe or on the hat somewhere up there.
Which is interesting.
So the building company sued Mrs. Butterfield for the money
that she stilled owed him.
And this was all covered in the New York Times, etcetera, etcetera,
big scandal rocking the socialite world.
And I believe she was not forced to pay.
Correct. It was $32,000 that was owed that she did not pay.
So, not insignificant.
There's a lot that I glossed over in terms
of his life, and I'm sorry for that.
But we have time limits.
But one thing that kind of says it all
about how important General Butterfield was and why we
as a society need to pay more attention to him,
is that he was actually buried at the West Point Cemetery,
an honor that is generally reserved for alums of West Point.
He was not an alum of West Point.
He came up through the militia volunteer system.
Got his regular army commissions, and then went back
and forth through the militia.
But there was a special authorization by the Secretary
of War allowing him to be buried here.
And he had passed away in 1908.
So this is actually the location at West Point Cemetery.
He's in burial marker 14, and he's listed as Medal of Honor recipient
and composer of the bugle called Taps.
His monument is the most ornate in the cemetery,
and it documents 38 battles and engagements of his career.
In the bottom left corner you can see his memorial there,
which if you then look back at the large image on the left,
there are largely those little markers or smaller markers
that are typical of Arlington Cemetery and such.
And then you have this big honking General Butterfield memorial.
In the, oh one other interesting thing.
He was actually offered the post of Ambassador to Germany
by President Harrison, and he declined this.
I'm not sure why, and I would love to find out.
But if anyone ever finds out, please let me know.
It could be a money thing.
I think he was doing better at home, but.
Anywho, so after Mrs. Butterfield died, they had a huge fortune
of over $2 million, and what was interesting was
that this was money from her first husband.
This was not so much Butterfield, this was Mr. James' money.
Though he still had significant wealth.
[Cough]. Excuse me.
Their estate was deemed to be worth 3 million in 1913,
and there was a huge amount
of charitable giving including 2.3 to the YMCA.
They built a hospital in Cold Spring, New York.
A public library for Cold Spring, New York.
Union College received $100,000.
His books went to the Philbrick-James Library
in Deerfield, New Hampshire, which actually was built by Butterfield
and funds that he raised.
Their artwork went to the New York Public Library,
war relics to the Historical Society of Utica.
And again, the money all came from the first husband pretty much.
So, they [inaudible] the valued philanthropy, and that is one
of their greatest legacies, particularly at Union College.
So in the last couple of minutes I just want to sort of bring us back
to Taps and its significance.
People throughout our history
since the Civil War period have been hearing Taps at some
of our most vulnerable and most tense moments.
Perhaps the most famous playing of Taps was
at President John F. Kennedy's funeral in 1963.
And it was famously the moment
where the bugler Kenneth Clark cracked one of the notes.
[Cough]. Excuse me.
An interestingly, we just had the 50th anniversary
of this funeral and the playing of Taps.
And Jari actually organized a commemoration of it
over at Arlington Cemetery.
And I think it was the largest ever massed playing
of Taps, is that correct?
So that was just a couple of weeks ago.
And very, very cool.
There are videos on YouTube, a lot in the press.
Is there anything you want to mention about that?
And how it connects to Taps for Veterans.
>> Just that Taps for Veterans, of course, is an organization
that is trying to get, you know,
liver buglers to sound Taps at military funerals.
But going back to what we just did the other week,
was that the 50th anniversary,
it was called A Bugle Call Remembered Taps
at the funeral of John F. Kennedy.
And what we were interested in doing, we're not wanting
to commemorate a, you know, a flaw, you know, a broken note.
But we wanted so much to commemorate the fact
that the bugle call was played at the President's funeral,
and it was performed by a US Army bugler, probably the,
actually I don't have to say probably, was the,
it was the absolutely the call that was heard
by the most amount of people at one time.
Because it was broadcast all over the world.
Incredible amount of pressure.
Allyn probably can attest to the fact
that when you are playing high profile funerals or ceremonies,
there is a certain amount of pressure that goes
on to a musician who has to play.
And that of course, that one note is remembered because it was thought
of as being an emotional sob that the nation had
for the death of the President.
So if you're interested in following actually more on that,
little plug for the website, is Tapsbugler.com.
If you just Google Taps bugler,
you can find out more information about that.
And also find out information on Daniel Butterfield.
We have a big article, a biography about Dan Butterfield.
And now after hearing some of the things today,
I will add some more information to that.
So if you get a chance, Tapsbugler.com.
>> Great, thank you.
What's so amazing about Taps nowadays, when you think
of its origin was just for extinguished lights.
And it's now become this 24 note capsule
that very much conveys the American spirit I think.
For whatever that means for you as an individual,
whether your completely anti-war, anti-military.
Or pro-military or in the middle, or anything alike,
it just, it forces reflection.
And I think that's a lot of what being American is
from the founding fathers when they reflected about, you know,
what was going on from the British
that was wrong and so on and so forth.
And I can prophesize all day long, but I will not bore you.
So, a couple just closing thoughts.
There's this, again going back to the Taps for bugler's thing,
or initiative, which is, Taps for Veterans, excuse me.
Taps bugler, Taps for veterans.
A lot of what's going on out there in the world
of military funerals is actually fake.
There is an electronic contraption being used.
In some ways it's a really great thing because it enables Taps
to be present at burials which would otherwise not have it.
However, some people see it as, you know,
why aren't you providing the actual honors to our servicemen
and women who have fallen?
I leave it to you to decide what side
of that argument you want to be on.
But what's so great about Taps for Veterans is
that it's creating a network to get live buglers
at as many services as humanly possible.
And if, you know, I'm a French horn player, I played Taps recently.
Andy brass player can really, if you put in the time,
can learn to play Taps on a bugle.
It is never going to be as great as Messer Van Patten or Jari,
but you know, as we all know live music has a power
that electronic recorded music does not have and will never have.
And there's actually an article in a recent,
it's called the National Standard Magazine over there.
It came out in September which addresses this controversy.
So look that up if you're interested in learning more.
Just want to ask Master Sergeant Van Patten a couple of questions.
I think you'll probably, it would be interesting
for all of us to hear from here.
Yeah, if you'd [inaudible].
So. I think it would be wonderful for us
to hear what have been the most meaningful experiences for you
in playing Taps and what are some of the challenges
that come with that for you?
>> Well I think there are all very meaningful.
Actually I'm feeling a little awkward up here
because I don't think that Taps is something should just be performed.
That it's, it signifies, when you give the honors to an individual
or a group, I guess the larger the group,
the more meaningful it is to more people.
So I look at things that way in terms
of playing for, with important people.
I try not to think about the people I'm playing, who are there.
Who are listening.
But the people I am playing for.
I think in terms of if you want to call it pressurizing it,
I've decided that I think of it more of as responsibility than pressure.
But when I'm playing for a funeral, that's, it's a one-time,
one-shot event for the family and for the service member.
So I think that they're all very important.
And of course, I play a lot of Taps at the Tomb of the Unknowns.
And in spirit, then I feel like I'm playing for everyone
who has given their life.
So, they're all important.
>> Thank you for sharing your perspective with us.
Just want to give you a direction to a couple
of resources before we wrap up, and then I'm going
to have one closing thought for you.
This is the logo for Jari's website, Taps Bugler.
And then there's also Taps for Veterans.
This is a magnificent photo
of Master Sergeant Van Patton playing Taps
at Arlington in the snow.
So just to give you a perspective that it is a rain
or shine kind of duty that one does.
For more about the Library's Civil War resources, check out our,
or Civil War music resources specifically,
the Performing Arts Encyclopedia is your number one stop.
loc.gov/performing arts.
And in the bottom right where it says special presentations,
there's actually a link for Civil War music.
This talk and all of our American Music initiatives are part of Songs
of America, which is a Library-wide project looking at the history
of American culture through the songs that have sort
of been a part of our existence here.
And again, one of the neat things with a lot
of the Civil War music is, whether it's Taps or Dixie, anything,
is that the music was being played on both sides
of the conflict highlighting that we're all one.
And this was just a very much an in fighting situation.
Lyrics were changed, particularly with things like the Battle Hymn
of the Republic, or Dixie even had lyric changes.
But Dixie was supposedly President Lincoln's favorite song.
So, it couldn't have been too bad.
Songs of America has a great website,
loc.gov/collections/ songs-of-amercia.
And the Civil War has a great portal
where all the items are digitized that are upstairs.
Prints and photographs is where a lot
of the Civil War images are available,
including the Liljenquist Family Collection photos.
Photos of General Butterfield and other generals.
There's a really nice tie-in to our veteran's history project,
which seeks to capture the stories of veterans
to archive our American folk history.
And I would have love to have had an oral history
with General Butterfield to go listen to,
but unfortunately it wasn't a thing back there.
So if you have any veterans in your lives, please encourage them
to partake in this project.
And if you're an affiliate with the Library, or anyone,
there are instructions on there as to how you can go out
and properly collect these interviews and bring them back
to the library for inclusion in the collections.
There's some more materials on veteran's history in the back there
if you'd like to learn more.
This is the Army Band's Bugle Call portal,
and you can see the daily sequence beginning
with first call reveille assembly etcetera, going on through Taps.
Most of these are not played regularly on posts anymore.
But they are still part
of the formal training for all US Army buglers.
So any trumpet player, you're going to have
to learn your bugling duty before you graduate at the School of Music,
and you don't go on to service until you do.
This is US Army Band Pershing's Own website.
There are a lot of great recordings on there,
and you can always see what Master Sergeant Van Patten is up to,
aside from his every day duties.
And I want to encourage you before you leave to check
out the exhibit over here.
On the left side is a sequence of bugling manuals, starting from 1838,
was it the first one with your Tattoo there?
>> Yes [inaudible] to 1847.
>> Okay, 1847 is the first one.
And then 1861 where you see that 1861 version of Tattoo going
on through up to the 20th century.
And you also see Taps listed as Extinguished Lights,
which was the original name for it.
So that's very interesting.
Then on the right side, first, we have the Butterfield's book compiled
by his wife, then we actually have a book that he wrote.
It's called Camp and Outpost Duty.
He wrote this in 1863 while he was hanging
out in the Civil War fighting.
So interesting that he found time to make his mark.
And I think he was always enterprising.
Always knew that he was trying to advance is position in society,
but doing it in a way that public service was front and foremost.
Then we have an authentic 1860s bugle there
that Jari was kind enough to bring in.
So check that out.
Please don't touch any of the items,
but feel to breathe near them I suppose.
There is a nice little book on Taps over there.
I'm blanking on the author's name but.
[ Inaudible Response ]
Yes, Jari worked a lot with him for the content there.
And then on the right side are two great recent books
about Civil War music.
Battle Hymn by Christian McWhirter.
And then another book by Stephen Cornelius.
And I just want to leave you with one thought
and then one video while you look at the things.
General Butterfield never intended for Taps to be his legacy at all.
He didn't even think to mention it until the newspaper brought it up
and then his bugler went to the newspaper.
And this was in the 1880s I believe.
So it's on the first hand very fascinating
that this is what his legacy has become, because to him,
this was just, you know, part of his duties as a general.
And there are other things that are perhaps more significant.
To some are more apparent as being connected to him that he instituted
in the army, including the Corps badge system.
In his roles in the leadership in the Union Army,
he was able to apply very brilliant, logistical thinking and ways
to innovate things that were going on.
He actually fixed a furlough system
so that people actually had more leave time, and it was standardized.
And then with his, it wasn't a bad furlough like we have nowadays.
But the Corps badge system is still in place today.
So these are the things like the engineer insignia,
which is the little building with the sort of the spires there.
And what he wrote about this, or actually it was covered
in the paper, the badge are marks of the other Corps' names were chosen
by me for no other reason than to have some pleasing form
or shape easily and quickly distinguished from others,
incapable of aiding in the esprit de Corps.
So on and so forth.
You know, a lot of our units still have the insignias
that he instituted during the Civil War, which is pretty great.
And then of course his books like Camping
Out Post Duty, are very significant.
I want to leave you with one clip from a video called Taps.
This is a film that featured George C. Scott, Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn,
Tom Cruz, and a bunch of interesting characters.
It was actually filmed at Valley Forge Military Academy where I went
to for Freshman/Sophomore years of high school by choice.
This is when I was first exposed to Taps and sort of ceremonial fashion.
And we heard it every day played live, including Tattoo and such.
So, near and dear to my heart because we all had to watch this.
And it was filmed at our school, and it was about sort
of military industrial complex and kids going crazy
because their school was going to get shut down.
And they wanted to save it.
But it's an indication of Taps being at the center
of American culture whether or not we know it.
It's kind of there in the background.
Or it's there in the forefront, or in the foreground if it's something
that we're forced to be connect to out of routine
or out of tragic circumstances.
But I think we can all say that Taps is a part of our lives.
Hopefully in a positive and reflective manner.
And do check out the exhibit.
And thank you for being here and listening to me.
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.
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