A HISTORY OF U.S. ARMY BANDS
Subcourse Number MU0010
EDITION D
US Army Element, School of Music
1420 Gator Blvd, Norfolk, VA 23521-5170
a
3 Credit Hoursa
Edition Date: October 2005
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/armybands.pdf
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13. BANDS OF THE WEST
a. During the era after the Civil War, the country expanded westward. New posts
were established throughout the great frontier. Although regimental bands were
abolished by the Army Act of 1869, the Army carried music with it to the West.
Regimental commanders continued to maintain bands. These bands usually
consisted of men detailed for that purpose. They were paid from the regimental
fund or by subscription.
b. Post life was lonesome and unexciting with few chances to experience culture.
Leading parades, performing for dances, providing concerts and escorting
funerals brought a certain amount of pomp, entertainment, and culture to remote
areas. Every evening, when not in the field, the band gave an hour concert in
front of the regimental headquarters. Army bands were present at many historic
events. In 1869, the 21st Infantry Band helped to celebrate the joining of the
nation with the golden spike at Promontory Point, Utah.
c. Bands played for ceremonies marking the end of campaigns and hostilities. After
Geronimo surrendered, he and the other Indian prisoners were sent to an Indian
reservation located in Florida. On September 8, 1886, the Fourth Cavalry Band
assembled on the parade ground at Fort Bowie and played as the prisoners were
escorted from Fort Bowie to be loaded aboard a train for Florida.
d. On January 21, 1891, General Miles' Army staged a final grand review at the Pine
Ridge Agency to mark the end of the Ghost Dance Uprising. On this occasion,
the First Infantry Regimental Band provided the music.
e. During this period, Lieutenant General Philip H. Sheridan commanded the
Division of the Missouri (1869 to 1883). Many of the same officers serving under
him during the Civil War now had commands in his division. Among them was
Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer. As mentioned earlier, both Sheridan and
Custer loved music and knew the effect of music upon their troops. As a result,
bands found themselves at the front once more.
f. LTC Custer insisted on a band for the Seventh Cavalry. The musicians were
given gray mounts (horses). This was the traditional color for musicians.
Sheridan used the color gray for his bands during the Civil War. This presented
an additional requirement for the band; each bandsman also had to be a superb
horseman. In order to keep the hands free while playing, the musician controlled
the horse with his knees. It was a difficult enough task for the musician to
perform while the horse was standing still or at a walk. This problem was only
compounded when playing at the charge.
g. The mounted band of the Seventh Cavalry accompanied Custer on many
campaigns. Playing Garry Owen, the band led his charge at the Washita River in
1868 and again in 1873 on the north bank of the Yellowstone below the mouth of
the Bighorn.
h. By 1876, a number of Congressional acts provided the Army with 40 chief
musicians, 60 principal musicians, 10 chief trumpeters, 240 trumpeters, and 628
musicians. All the positions of chief trumpeter or trumpeter were assigned to the
10 cavalry regiments (1 chief trumpeter and 24 trumpeters per regiment).
i. In garrison, the trumpeters were posted on a rotation basis to the guardhouse.
They played the daily calls which so regulated post life, even causing one
lieutenant's wife to write, "We lived, ate, slept by the bugle calls."
j. In the field, one bugler reported to the regimental commander as orderly bugler of
the day. Once a command or signal was given on the march, the bugler played
the appropriate call for that command or signal. After a pause, he repeated the
last note. The original call that was sounded became the preparatory command.
The repeated last note became the signal of execution. In addition, a call which
ascended the musical scale indicated movement to the right of the line or column
while a call which descended the scale indicated movement to the left of the line
or column.
k. An additional duty of the orderly bugler of the day was messenger for the
regimental commander. Trumpeter John Martin (Giovanni Martini, originally a
drummer for Garibaldi during the wars to unite Italy) was the orderly bugler of
the day at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. His life was spared when sent back
with a message from Custer's Adjutant (LT W.W. Cooke) to Colonel Benteen
requesting the ammunition packs brought forward. In 1879, Martin was called to
Chicago to give testimony at the court of inquiry investigating the events at the
Little Big Horn.
l. The musical and non-musical requirements of the bands and field musicians often
put them on the front lines and exposed to fire. However, they responded to these
duties as they had during the Civil War. Some of the musicians earned the Medal
of Honor for their individual actions. For example, Trumpeter John E. Clancy,
Light Battery E, First Artillery, received the Medal of Honor for his actions at
Wounded Knee Creek, December 29, 1890.
m. In 1899, an effort was made to improve military musical units by selecting
suitable men for regimental bands from recruits at depots or by special enlistment.
n. In 1894, a War Department general order authorized one sergeant and 20 privates
per band, plus the chief musician or leader.
o. Though no record dating before 1889 indicates any standard instrumentation for
Army bands, a list of the instruments issued to each regiment for the use of its
band during the period 1889-1895 gives some indication of the instrumentation of
the times. This list included the following: D-flat piccolo, concert flute, E-flat
clarinets, B-flat clarinets, E-flat cornets, B-flat cornets or flugelhorns, E-flat altos,
B-flat trombones (valve or slide), B-flat baritone, E-flat basses, snare drum, bass
drum, and cymbals.
a. On February 15, 1898, an explosion sank the USS MAINE in Havana Harbor
killing 266
