TAPS

It seems like every three or four months the following story on the birth of “Taps”, the bugle tune played at military funerals, circulates around the internet:

“Reportedly, 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 moans of a soldier who lay severely wounded on the field. Not knowing if it was a Union or Confederate soldier, the Captain decided to risk his life and bring the stricken man back for medical attention.

Crawling on his stomach through the gunfire, the Captain reached the stricken soldier and began pulling him toward his encampment. When the Captain finally reached his own lines, he discovered it was actually a Confederate soldier, but the soldier was dead. The Captain lit a lantern and suddenly caught his breath and went numb with shock. In the dim light, 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, the boy enlisted in the Confederate Army.

The following morning, heartbroken, the father asked permission of his superiors to give his son a full military burial, despite his enemy status. His request was only partially granted. The Captain had asked if he could have a group of Army band members play a funeral dirge for his son at the funeral. The request was turned down since the soldier was a Confederate. But, out of respect for the father, they did say they could give him only one musician.

The Captain chose a bugle. He asked the bugler to play a series of musical notes he had found on a piece of paper in the pocket of the dead youth’s uniform. This wish was granted. The haunting melody, we now know as “Taps” used at military funerals was born.”

What a great story! If it doesn’t bring a lump in your throat and make your heart skip a beat, nothing ever will. Can’t you just see how poor Capt. Ellicombe must have felt when he not only found his own beloved son dead on the battlefield, but also that the boy had joined up to fight for the Confederacy?

Well, you can relax now. That’s not how Taps came into being. There is no record of any Union officer by the name of Robert Ellicombe. There was no dead son or Confederate soldier involved in the birth of Taps. This is a myth that got started in the 1930s and refuses to die.

Here is the real story on the origin of Taps:

It was Union Brig. Gen. Daniel Butterfield, commander of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, V Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, who gave birth to Taps at Harrison’s Landing, Virginia in July 1862. He composed Taps by altering the words from the French army bugle call ‘Tattoo’, which signaled ‘Lights out.’ Gen. Butterfield showed his brigade bugler, Pvt. Oliver Norton, some notes he had scribbled on an envelope and asked him to sound them on his bugle. And the rest is history..