researched by Dorothy Acton
I was handed a newspaper article about "Taps," and I thought it would be excellent for our July issue. Here's how it went:
It all began in 1862 during the Civil War, when Union Army Captain Robert Ellicombe was with his men near Harrison's Landing in Virginia. The Confederate Army was on the other side of the narrow strip of land.
During the night, Captain Ellicombe heard the moan of a soldier who lay mortally wounded on the field. Not knowing if it was a Union or a Confederate soldier, the captain decided to risk his life and bring the injured man back for medical attention. He reached the soldier and pulled him toward his encampment. When the captain reached his own lines, he discovered a Confederate soldier, but the soldier was dead.
In the dim light of the lantern, he saw the face of the soldier. It was his own son! The boy had been studying music in the South when the war broke out. Without telling his father, he had enlisted in the Confederate Army.
The heartbroken father asked permission of his superiors to give his son a full military burial. His wish was partly granted.
He asked if he could have a group of Army Band members play a dirge for his son at the funeral. His request was refused since the soldier was a Confederate. Out of respect for the captain, they did say that they could give him one musician. He chose the bugler. He asked the bugler to play a series of musical notes found in the pocket of the dead son's uniform. The wish was granted. This music was the haunting melody we now know as "Taps."
But, hey, WAIT! That's not the end of this story.
When you start to research, you never know where your digging will take you. I learned from such prestigious websites as West Point, Arlington Cemetery, and the Veteran's Administration that the above tale is just another one of the Urban Legends that persist in circulating.
According to the Veteran's Administration website, here is the history of "Taps."
The 24-note melancholy bugle call known as "taps" is thought to be a revision of a French bugle signal, called "tattoo," that notified soldiers to cease an evening's drinking and return to their garrisons. It was sounded an hour before the final bugle call to end the day by extinguishing fires and lights. The last five measures of the tattoo resemble taps.
The word "taps" is an alteration of the obsolete word "taptoo," derived from the Dutch "taptoe." Taptoe was the command - "Tap toe!" - to shut ("toe to") the "tap" of a keg.
The revision that gave us present-day taps was made during America's Civil War by Union Gen. Daniel Adams Butterfield, heading a brigade camped at Harrison Landing, Va., near Richmond. Up to that time, the U.S. Army's infantry call to end the day was the French final call, "L'Extinction des feux." Gen. Butterfield decided the "lights out" music was too formal to signal the day's end. One day in July 1862 he recalled the tattoo music and hummed a version of it to an aide, who wrote it down in music. Butterfield then asked the brigade bugler, Oliver W. Norton, to play the notes and, after listening, lengthened and shortened them while keeping his original melody.
He ordered Norton to play this new call at the end of each day thereafter, instead of the regulation call. The music was heard and appreciated by other brigades, who asked for copies and adopted this bugle call. It was even adopted by Confederate buglers.
This music was made the official Army bugle call after the war, but not given the name "taps" until 1874.
The first time taps was played at a military funeral may also have been in Virginia soon after Butterfield composed it. Union Capt. John Tidball, head of an artillery battery, ordered it played for the burial of a cannoneer killed in action. Not wanting to reveal the battery's position in the woods to the enemy nearby, Tidball substituted taps for the traditional three rifle volleys fired over the grave. Taps was played at the funeral of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson 10 months after it was composed. Army infantry regulations by 1891 required taps to be played at military funeral ceremonies.
Taps now is played by the military at burial and memorial services, to accompany the lowering of the flag and to signal the "lights out" command at day's end.
The history of "Taps" may not be as poignant as some might prefer, but nobody can dispute the beauty of this moving melody.
ORANGE SQUEEZIN'S
