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Post by Diane Merkel on Oct 7, 2005 13:02:08 GMT -6
The following is from a website visitor. I know the band was not at the battle, but does anyone know if the band membership included bagpipers? I have been told that there were bagpipers attached to the 7th Cav. at the Little Big Horn. Do you have any information as to names, did they have their pipes with them at the battle and were the pipes ever recovered?
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Post by crzhrs on Oct 7, 2005 13:09:04 GMT -6
I think you are blowing a lot of hot air!
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Post by Diane Merkel on Oct 7, 2005 13:39:35 GMT -6
Seriously, crzhrs . . . . The question is from a Celtic group, so I'm sure it's an honest question.
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Post by elisabeth on Oct 8, 2005 3:10:51 GMT -6
I have (don't laugh) a CD entitled 'Custer's Last Band' -- a recreation of Vinatieri's music for the 7th Cavalry band. They've re-scored it for a purely brass/percussion ensemble, so the CD itself is no help; however, Steve Charpie's insert notes say, of the original scores, that "the music consists of brass band music; band music that includes woodwinds; social dance music for an ensemble of strings, brass and woodwinds". No mention of bagpipes. But he does make the point that a number of other Vinatieri scores are incomplete, with several instrumental parts missing; so it's not conclusive.
Not impossible that individual companies might have had the odd stray bagpiper? Co. I, for one, had its own orchestra (as well as a glee club!). I don't know how big, or what instruments it consisted of; Barnitz, in 'Life in Custer's Cavalry', p. 163, speaks of "the low, sweet music of a violin, guitar and flute" from Co. I serenading officers at Camp Alfred Gibbs late at night on the Fourth of July, but there must have been more instruments than that ...
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Post by Scout on Oct 8, 2005 5:56:00 GMT -6
Bagpipes blown' Garry Owen....sounds like something out of a Erroll Flynn movie, is there a connection here? Seriously never heard of a bagger being present at the LBH but there is really something about bagpipe music which really stirs the blood. Music would be a very popular source of entertainment at the forts where boredom ran high. I imagine that some of the privates who were musicians got invited into the Custer home to preform for GAC and company. I don't think bagpipes could be played from the back of a horse, probably none were taken along.
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Post by elisabeth on Oct 8, 2005 8:25:07 GMT -6
Found the following in a website devoted to tartans: "One example which has intrigued contemporary researchers came from the pattern books of the Clackmannanshire firm of Patons. An entry from the nineteenth century shows a scrap of largely blue and red tartan with the thread count falling in sevens, entitled 'The 7th Cavalry Tartan'. No British military formation has such a name, although there was an American 7th Cavalry, which achieved fame under General Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, when it was massacred by the Sioux Indians. Apparently, General Custer had a liking for military bands and formed ad hoc brass and bagpipe bands. It is probable that the 7th Cavalry wrote to Scotland to commission a tartan for their pipers and drummers, since the regiment contained many Americans of Scottish descent." This is the link (though you have to wade through loads of tartan history to get to it): www.kinnaird.net/tartan.htm#topOn another website, AskTheBrain.com, someone states that five Scottish members of the 7th buried their bagpipes before the battle. No sources given, and sounds improbable; can't imagine bagpipes being taken along when sabres weren't! And in any case, pipers would be as likely to be Irish as Scottish. Still, a bit of Googling throws up many hints that 'Garryowen' is considered first and foremost a bagpipe tune. So maybe they did indeed have bagpipes after all ...
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Post by elisabeth on Oct 8, 2005 8:47:06 GMT -6
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Post by Ray Hillyer on Oct 8, 2005 9:52:00 GMT -6
Milbourne Chandler in "Of Garryowen in Glory," the 1960 history of the 7th Cavaly stated that the Pipes and Drums were organized in 1954 while the regiment was stationed in Japan. He discribed the colors of the plaids and kilts as dark blue and yellow for the cavalry, light blue because they were serving as infantry, red for action and white for honor. He did not mention the green.
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Post by Jim on Oct 8, 2005 11:47:50 GMT -6
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Post by Jim on Oct 8, 2005 11:49:53 GMT -6
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Post by crzhrs on Oct 8, 2005 12:55:00 GMT -6
Maybe if Custer brought the band along their playing would have terrified the Indians into seeking safety at reservations . . . epecially if bagpipes were played!
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Post by d o harris on Oct 8, 2005 13:55:56 GMT -6
Do you suppose bagpipes are the reason the Irish invented whisky and the Scots perfected it? Or is it the other way around?
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Post by elisabeth on Oct 9, 2005 1:14:36 GMT -6
"The Irish invented the bagpipes, and gave them to the Scots as a joke. The Scots haven't seen the joke yet." -- Irish saying.
Crzhrs, you could be onto something. Better than the Gatlings!
As the Duke of Wellington said of his Highlanders at Waterloo: "I don't know what they do to the enemy, but by God, they terrify me!" Scary things, bagpipes. Discovered when Googling this yesterday that when the British finally conquered Scotland, they classified the bagpipes as a weapon of war and made them illegal.
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Post by Diane Merkel on Oct 9, 2005 12:14:04 GMT -6
Elisabeth, thanks so much for the link to the tartan! A friend gave me a woven scarf in the Weir family plaid, but I did not know about the Seventh's. Too bad it's so new (1950)!
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Post by El Crab on Oct 11, 2005 0:01:05 GMT -6
That article on Vinatieri is disappointing. It doesn't even mention that the band being left behind was a decision that ultimately resulted in 3 recent Super Bowl wins.
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