The American Reveille: A British Origin?

Reveille Sequence in British Sources

In the early 1800s, Samuel Potter consolidated distinct Scottish duty calls and English duty calls into a unified system. He published The Art of Beating the Drum in 1815 and The Art of Playing the Fife in 1817. Some of the previous duty calls between the English and Scottish were already the same, but for those that were different, the English duties were preferred. The only real exception to this culling was the Reveille.

Rather than making the Three Camps the Reveille for the British army, Potter details the method of performing the English and Scottish reveilles together.

Potter’s reveille begins with the English Reveille (The Three Camps). The Reveille is then followed by a series of rolls, paired with flourishes or cheers on the fife. The Scottish Reveille follows.

In his drum manual, Potter notes that the the musicians should perform the Scotch at least twice, and should always commence with the Rolls and Cheers.

With the fife part only 4 measures in each line and the drum part a total of 36 measures, to perform the tune once, the fife must play AABB AABB A. It’s possible that Potter’s sequence allows for a different Scotch Reveille on the second repeat, but he offers no instruction to the fifers.

The sequence ends with the Points of War, or the beginning of the Three Camps.

Potter and the American Reveille Sequence

Potter’s sequence is very reminiscent of the American system; in fact, it contains some of the most significant and consistent elements found in the American sequences. As we saw in the overview, the American Reveille sequence always commences with the Three Camps and ends with the Points of War, just as Potter’s sequence.

use of the scotch in both

All of the American sequences include the Scotch Reveille and most include two. Earlier manuals refer to this as the Scotch Reveille and the Scotch Repeat, similar to Potter’s terminology of “repeating” the Scotch at least twice.

American Civil War manuals tend to also include two Scotches, with one always the final tune before the Points of War. Woburn, Hulbert, and Robbins include one Scotch before the Points of War, and another Scotch in the middle of the sequence.

use of the cheers in both

In most of the militia sequences, the Three Cheers precedes the Scotch, much like the cheers in Potter’s fife manual.

Additionally, the Americans often play the rolls and three cheers (or a shorter roll or One Cheer) between tunes. This is consistently done in Ashworth and Rumrille and persists into the American Civil War-era manuals. Woburn doesn’t indicate the use of cheers (though they may have been implied). Hulbert, Robbins, and Robinson note their use between tunes. Hulbert and Robbins use the Three Cheers throughout, while Robinson only uses the Three Cheers before the Scotch, otherwise just a single cheer.

Interestingly, the cheers are not performed between Three Camps, The Austrian, and The Hessian, and usually not before the Double Drag. Instead, these manuals tend to only notate them before the 2/4 quicksteps and prior to the Scotch, as if the 2/4 quicksteps also represent Scotch-like Reveilles.

marching to the reveille sequence

While not specified by Potter, later British manuals describe how to march to the Reveille. The musicians perform the Three Camps standing, then march to the Scotch in quicktime, and then perform the Points of War standing (Tamplini).

Hulbert (1807) describes a similar process. The musicians beat the Reveille while marching in common time and perform the final Points of War standing.

If one played Potter’s sequence with several Scotches, one would play: English (standing) – Cheers – Scotch – Cheers – Scotch – Cheers – Scotch – Points of War (standing).

When playing the American sequence, one performs: English – Austrian – Double Drag – Cheers – Scotch – Cheers – Other Tunes – Cheers – The Scotch – Points of War (standing). 

Clear connection Between Potter & Americans

These particular observations demonstrate an interesting and compelling degree of overlap between the two traditions. We can obviously see that the American tradition begins long before 1815 and thus it’s impossible to say here whether Potter is borrowing the American tradition in his efforts to unify the English and Scottish music, or whether he is simplifying an existing British tradition. To find an answer, we turn to Buttrey.

Buttrey and the American Reveille Sequence

If Potter’s manuals contain the first regulation reveille sequence, Buttrey’s MS appears to contain the first unofficial British reveille sequence.

The Buttrey manuscript is a massive volume of hand-written tunes, predominately written by John Buttrey, a drummer in the 34^th Regiment of Foot. He served from 1797 to 1814 in Africa and India. The dates and location of his service are important because he began and ended his service before Potter’s reorganization of the English and Scottish music. He also did not serve in North America, and therefore was not reasonably acquainted with American military traditions.

Based on the structure and organization of Buttrey’s manuscript, Tracy Macdonnell (a leading expert on the manuscript) suspects that Buttrey wrote in chunks and organized in a thoughtful manner. For example, the first 62 tunes are retreats, troops, and duties all grouped according to type: tunes 108-134 are all hornpipes; tunes 137-148 are all jigs; etc. Macdonnell believes that Buttrey wrote the majority of the tunes in the 1790s. None of John Buttrey’s recorded tunes (1-961) were written after his service ended in 1814.

Reveille Sequence in Buttrey

While the tunes in-between do not refer to themselves as Reveilles, it’s curious that Buttrey lists these tunes in this particular order. As Macdonnell says, Buttrey appears thoughtful in his organization and therefore we should suspect some meaning in organizing these tunes. When investigated much closer, Buttrey’s sequence of these 9 tunes proves to be exceptionally similar to the American Reveille sequence.

Buttrey’s Tunes

Let’s now take a closer look at these 9 tunes:

1. The 3 Camps. This tune is the English Reveille and appears the same as in earlier English tutors and later in Potter.
2. Huson Camps – A Duble Drag. This is a 6/8, double drag tune. The first three lines match a dance tune known as “The Hessian Camps”. The fourth and fifth lines show an arguable connection to the American “The Dutch”.
3. The 2^nd Dubble Drag. Another double drag. This tune is a slight variation of Lord Loudon’s Singlings of the Troop, as seen in many English Tutors.
4. The Prickley March. Though it has a strange title, this tune is La Diane, the French Reveille. Note: Line A of The Hessian, as played by the Americans, is La Diane. Also note that earlier American manuals (aka Brown) refer to The Hessian as The French Reveille.
5. The Swift Revaley. This tune is The Austrian.
6. The Scotch Revaley. This tune is the same as “A Scotch Reveille” seen in many earlier 18^th century fife tutors. Though not listed in the official Scottish Duty Calls, it is the version of a Scotch Reveille chosen by Potter to be included in the British duty. All American reveille sequences use this tune: the first Scotch in Rumrille; the Scotch included at the end of Woburn, Hulbert, Robbins, and Robinson; the Slow Scotch in B&E.
7. The 2^nd Revaley. A 2/4 tune. Its position following The Scotch Revaley suggests this is an alternative Scotch Revaley, but its origin / name is currently unknown.
8. The 3^rd Revaley. See the note above.
9. The 4^th Revaley. All 18^th century tutors list this tune as the Scotch Reveille in the Scotch duty. Rumrille’s Scotch Repeat, and later B&E’s Quick Scotch, is a variant of this Scotch.

Comparison of Buttrey’s tunes to American Sequence

While Buttrey does not labelled all of these tunes as “Reveilles”, their identity betrays most of them as such. Also, while he doesn’t necessarily indicate that this is a sequence of tunes, notice how similar (in fact, almost identical) this list is to the American sequence. See the comparison below: 

Buttrey	Certification of Achievement Percival (1821)
Three Camps	Three Camps
Huson Camps – A Double Drag – The Dutch?	Hushion (The Austrian)
The 2nd Dubble Drag	French (The Hessian)
The Prickley March – The French Reveille	Double Drag
The Swift Revaley – The Austrian	Single Drag (slow)
The Scotch Revaley	Compound Drag (The Dutch)
The 2nd Revaley – 2/4	Single Drag (quick)
The 3rd Revaley – 2/4	Scotch (Slow)
The 4th Revaley – Scotch Repeat	Scotch (Quick)
	Three Camps (Points of War?)

While the order of the tunes is not identical, notice that every tune can, more-or-less, find a match. They both contain: The Three Camps, The Austrian, The French / Hessian, The Dutch, and 2 Scotch Reveilles. The 2^nd Double Drag matches Percival’s Double Drag. Possibly the 2^nd and 3^rd Revaleys in Buttrey are the slow and quick Single Drags in Percival.

Why Percival’s Certificate?

I included Percival as the comparison because his sequence and Buttrey’s share incredible similarities. But also note, otherwise, how similar Buttrey’s sequence is to the American sequence:

1. Begins with Three Camps.
2. Ends with a Scotch Repeat.
3. The Hessian (Prickely March) and The Austrian (Swift Revaley) included
4. Another Scotch somewhere in the sequence.
5. A Double Drag.
6. 1+ quicksteps.

Unfortunately, Buttrey doesn’t make absolutely clear his reasons for placing these 9 tunes next to each other and therefore we should question whether this was meant to be a series of reveilles known to Buttrey, or a sequence of reveilles played as part of his duty as a fifer. I strongly argue in favor of the latter.

The Reveille Sequence: Conclusion

As I have mentioned above, the Americans were performing a fairly uniform Reveille sequence beginning by at least the American Revolution, but to create such a random and complex sequence from nothing seems farfetched at best. The incredible overlap between the American sequences, Potter’s sequence, and this list of tunes provided by Buttrey is too similar to deny a relationship.

---

To learn more about the larger history and musical overlap, continue following the sequence of articles. Next is ‘The Three Camps – Origin & History’.

To inspect the entire Buttrey’s music, take a look at the amazing work of digitizing the Buttrey Manuscript.