Taps: 24 Notes of History and Erie County’s Oliver Norton
On a sultry July evening in 1862, a battered Union army lay in camp along the James River, downstream from Richmond, after the failed attempt to capture the Confederate capital. General Daniel Butterfield called in his young bugler, Oliver Norton, from Erie’s 83rd Pennsylvania regiment. That night, they created a new “Lights Out” for Butterfield’s brigade. By the next morning, dozens of other buglers from nearby units flocked to see Norton to get copies of the new tune. The iconic TAPS was born. Now, TAPS is the most famous bugle call in American history, being played at military funerals across the country. In later years, Norton would become a multimillionaire industrialist, summered at the Chautauqua Institution, and his widow left a legacy to her husband by funding Chautauqua’s opera center: Norton Hall.
George Deutsch, B.S., Executive Director, Emeritus, of the Erie County Historical Society/Hagen History Center is a leader in historical preservation and multiple public history projects. In 2022, he concluded a five-year, $11 Million, building and exhibit construction project for the History Center. He has co-founded several historical organizations related to the Civil War and the War of 1812 in his hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania, including the Flagship Niagara League, which played a central role in reconstructing the U.S. Brig Niagara and creating the Erie Maritime Museum. He has taught history courses at the Chautauqua Institution in New York since 2005 and has lectured on both political and historical topics at Erie’s Jefferson Educational Society since 2010. For 30 years he has given numerous presentations on Civil War history across seven states and Washington, D.C. In 2023, Deutsch finished a three-year term on the Historical Marker Committee for the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office. He continues to serve as a representative for the America250PA Commission. He has been published in numerous journals and also served as a consultant to National Geographic magazine for its Civil War sesquicentennial issue. Deutsch was honored twice by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and received the Local History Award in 2003 from the Erie County Historical Society. He earned a degree in history from Mercyhurst University and was also educated at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He is currently writing a new book on the famous Civil War regiment, the 83rd Pennsylvania Infantry from northwestern Pennsylvania.
