Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic, entertaining read
Review: Thomas Ayres' book is a great read that is impossible to put down. The only people who would not enjoy it would be stuffed-shirt academics that are simply jealous because they cannot write about history in a clear and entertaining manner. (For an example of those types, look around any college bookstore for paperbacks written by faculty members.) I can't wait for the sequel.
Rating: 
Summary: Too many errors
Review: Too many errors and spins to consider this a worthwhile reading experience.1. TAPS was created by Major General Butterfield......Not Captain Ellicome. There is no record of Ellicome in the the US Army). Read the true story about TAPs below. 2. Ayres claims that Britiain has a claim on California based on Sir Francis Drake's claim in 1579. Unfortunately, the Spanish claimed America and 1492 and the first Spanish explorers reached California in 1542. The Spanish ceded their rights to California America following the Mexican-American War. 3. Ayres chronology about the signing of the Declaration of Independence does not agree with the National Archives and Records Administration. He claims the Declaration was agreed to on July 2, 1776 and signed on August 18, 1776. According to the National Archives and Records Administration, all nut NY agreed to the wording of the Declaration on July 2. Discussion and debate continued then until the afternoon of July 4, 1776 when Philadelphia bells heralded the agreement. The Declaration was finally signed on August 2, 1776 by most memebers of the Continental Congress. Others signed later and two never signed it. Read the National Archives and Records Administration resion below. I've verified some of Ayres claims but the three errors above left a bad taste in my mouth since Ayres claims to be trying to correct American history. Instead, he is propogating errors and myths! There may be more errors, since I have not checked all of his stories. ================================================================ TAPs: Of all the American military bugle calls, none is so easily recognized or more apt to render emotional reactions than the 24 notes of the eloquent and haunting melody, Taps. It's a song that usually leaves a lump in throats and creates tears in our eyes. However, because its history is so interesting and clouded in controversy, its origin is worthy of further study.
Until the Civil War, the infantry bugle call for Lights Out had been borrowed from the French and set down in Silas Casey's manual, Tactics. The music for Taps was changed by Union Brigadier General Daniel Adams Butterfield for use by his unit (Third Brigade, First Division, Fifth Army Corps, Army of the Potomac) in July 1862 while they were quartered at Harrison�s Landing (Berkeley Plantation) in Virginia following the Seven Day's battle during the Peninsular Campaign.
Butterfield was born in Utica, New York on October 31, 1831 and graduated from Union College at Schenectady. He was a New York merchant and 1st Sergeant with the Clay Guards, a volunteer militia unit, when the Civil War broke out. On May 2, 1861, he led the 12th Regiment of the New York State Militia to Washington as its Colonel. Ten days later, he was commissioned a Lt. Colonel in the regular army where he commanded the 8th Brigade 3rd Division in the Shenandoah Valley during the First Bull Run campaign.
He was promoted to Brigadier General U.S. Volunteers in September 1861 and given command of the 3rd Brigade 1st Division (under Brigadier General George Morell) V Corps of the Army of the Potomac. During the Peninsular campaign in Virginia, Butterfield served prominently at the Battle of Gaines Mill on June 27, 1862, when, although injured, he seized the colors of the 3rd Pennsylvania and rallied the regiment at a critical time despite relentless fire from the enemy. Thirty years later, he would be awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism.
Butterfield also participated in the 2nd Battle of Bull Run and Antietam campaigns. He succeeded Morell as Division Commander and led V Corps in the desperate assault against Marye�s Heights in the battle for Fredericksburg. On November 11, 1862, he was again recognized for his valor by being promoted to the rank of Major General U.S. Volunteers. In this capacity, he served as Chief of Staff (Army of the Potomac) for Generals Joseph Hooker and George Meade between the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.
Butterfield was promoted to Colonel 5th U.S. Infantry on July 1, 1863 as the opening shots at Gettysburg were being fired, and wounded during a subsequent engagement. His duties as Chief of Staff at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg ultimately required his testimony before a Joint Congressional Committee investigating the Conduct of the War in March 1864.
After recovering from his wounds, Butterfield rejoined Hooker as his Chief of Staff and participated in battles around Chattanooga. Between April 1864 and June 1864, he commanded 3rd Division XX Corps (Army of the Cumberland) and took part in several battles in the vicinity of Atlanta, including the battle for Kennesaw Mountain.
By war�s end, Butterfield was brevetted a major general. He stayed in the army after the Civil War, serving as superintendent of the army�s recruiting service in New York City but resigned from the army in 1870 to head the U.S. Subtreasury in NYC. Eventually, he joined the American Express Company as its eastern superintendent and married in 1886 at the age of 55. He was in charge of a number of special public ceremonies, including General William Tecumseh Sherman�s funeral in 1889 and Dewey�s triumphant return after the Battle of Manila (1900).
Butterfield died on July 17, 1901 in Cold Spring, NY. Taps was played at his funeral. Although he did not attend West Point, he was buried across the Hudson River in one the most ornate tombs at the Academy�s Cemetery. There is also a monument to Butterfield in New York City near Grant's Tomb. There is nothing on either monument that mentions Taps or Butterfield's association with the call. In addition to Taps, he was also responsible for designing the army�s system of corps badges during the Civil War.
An account of how Butterfield composed the bugle call surfaced in an article written by Gustav Kobbe, a music historian and critic, in the August 1898 issue of Century Magazine. In the article, called The Trumpet in Camp and Battle, Kobbe wrote about the origin of Civil War bugle calls. In regards to Taps, he wrote:
In speaking of our trumpet calls I purposely omitted one with which it seemed most appropriate to close this article, for it is the call which closes the soldier's day .... Lights Out. I have not been able to trace this call to any other service. If it seems probable, it was original with Major Seymour; he has given our army the most beautiful of all trumpet-calls.
Kobbe was basing his claim on the Army drill manual for infantry tactics prepared by Major General Emory Upton in 1867 (and revised in 1874). The bugle calls in the manual had been compiled by Major (later General) Truman Seymour of the 5th U.S. Artillery. Taps was incorrectly called Lights Out in this manual since it was a replacement for the earlier version disliked by Butterfield. The real title of the call was not added until later, although other manuals started calling it Taps because most soldiers already knew it by that name. Since Seymour was responsible for music in the manual, Kobbe assumed that he had written the call.
Kobbe�s article prompted a letter from Oliver W. Norton in Chicago who claimed he knew how the call came to be and that he was the first to perform it. Norton wrote:
I was much interested in reading the article by Mr. Gustav Kobbe, on the Trumpet and Bugle Calls, in the August Century. Mr. Kobbe says that he has been unable to trace the origin of the call now used for Taps, or the Go to Sleep, as it is generally called by the soldiers. As I am unable to give the origin of this call, I think the following statement may be of interest to Mr. Kobbe and your readers.
Rating:
Summary: Great read
Review: While Wintermeier (above) dismissed Ayres because he disputes three points, he misses the whole point of the book. Who knows who is right on these points of history? As one wag once said, "History is a lie agreed upon." That some soldier's name does not show up in the army's list a hundred or so years ago does not mean they weren't there. That someone lost to us now claims credit for taps or for California or for the moon -- who cares. The only way we will really know is if we get in a time machine and go back there. And if the National Archives wanted to preserve the 4th of July for a special day instead of July 2, what is to keep them from changing the record for their own purposes? Politicians have been known to do that... The quote by Adams certainly sounds correct. I would like to see Thomas Ayres respond to Wintermeier here. Meanwhile, this is an entertaining book that challenges a lot of our closely held opinions about history and makes us think twice about what we were taught. For that it is invaluable. Women have known forever that there is a reason it is called "history" -- it has always been a story about the men. The white men, to be exact. So who can trust Wintermeier's sources? To the victor belong the spoils and the history lessons. The rest of us minorities, women and non-whites, have largely been left out. What makes Ayres book so good is that he lets us know who some of these "others" are that helped to shape this country. And if there is a dispute about a few points, so be it. No record is completely pure. No book is perfect. Get it and have a great read for summer.
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