Annotation:Pretty Cupid

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PRETTY CUPID. AKA - "Issachar's Reteat," "Pretty Cubit." American, English; Retreat March (3/4). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The tune was played as a retreat march (i.e. played at nighttime to signal end of day) in the Continental and English armies and was included in a number of War of Independence-era American fife manuscripts It appears in the c. 1776-78 music manuscript books of Thomas Nixon Jr. (Framingham, Conn.), the 1790 copybook of Whittier Perkins (Mass.), the 1777 music ms. of fifer Giles Gibbs (Conn.), and the c. 1800 book of William Patten (perhaps from Philadelphia). It was also entered into the music copybook of John Buttery (1784-1854), a fifer with the 37th Regiment, British army, who served from 1797-1814 and who late in life emigrated to Canada.

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