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Reflections October 2014

Taps: Signaling the End of the Day, The End of a Life

By Tait Trussell

General Daniel Butterfield of the Army of the Potomac became dissatisfied with the traditional firing of three rifle volleys at the conclusion of burials. One evening, Butterfield summoned the bugler to his tent. And together, they composed a melody that is the present Taps.   

There are 1.7 million of us World War II veterans still alive. More than 39 percent of the nation's 23.4 million living veterans are 65 or older, according to the VA. And any of us who wants a military funeral gets a bugler to blow Taps.

There’s a touching story about the origin of Taps. One night during the Civil War, Army Captain Robert Ellicombe heard the moan of a soldier. Not knowing whether it came from a Union or a Confederate soldier, Ellicombe crawled toward the wounded man and dragged him to his own lines.

Once there, he lit a lantern. The soldier was now dead. Suddenly, Ellicombe went numb with shock. The soldier was his own son. He had been studying music in the South, and he had not told his father he had joined the Confederate forces.

The next morning, the father asked permission to give his son a military funeral, although a member of the Confederate Army. The father asked a bugler if he would play the notes, the Captain had found on a sheet of paper in his dead son’s pocket.

The music was the haunting notes of Taps now played at all military funerals.

A dramatic story, which has been told for many years. But it is untrue. The truth: Taps was composed in 1862 at Harrison’s Landing in Virginia. General Daniel Butterfield of the Army of the Potomac became dissatisfied with the traditional firing of three rifle volleys at the conclusion of burials. One evening, Butterfield summoned the bugler to his tent. And together, they composed a melody that is the present Taps.   

As the bugler, Private Horton later wrote about the occasion: General Butterfield, showing me some notes written on the back of an envelope, asked me to sound them on my bugle. I played the notes several times. He then changed it several times, lengthening some notes and shortening others. But retaining the melody as first given to me. He directed me to sound that for Taps thereafter.

“The music was beautiful that summer night. It was heard far beyond our brigade,” Horton wrote. “The next day, I was visited by several buglers from nearby brigades, asking for copies of the music. I think no order was issued from headquarters authorizing the substitution of this for the regulation call. But as each brigade commander exercised his own discretion, the call was gradually taken up through the Army of the Potomac.”

Within months, the new Taps was being sounded by buglers of both Union and Confederate forces.

Now Taps is played at all military funerals.

Bugles Across America has about 7,130 volunteers, which still leaves many funerals dependent on ceremonial bugles and Taps recordings. Buglers to play Taps are in short supply at a time when the need for people who can perform this solemn duty is very high, says Tom Day, founder Bugles Across America.

In addition to casualties from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the number of veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam who have died has peaked in the past few years. About 656,000 veterans died in fiscal 2009, according to Census estimates, says Jo Schuda, a spokeswoman for the Department of Veterans Affairs — about 1,800 a day. In fiscal 2008, about 657,000 died, according to the VA.

 

Tait Trussell is an old guy and fourth-generation professional journalist who writes extensively about aging issues among a myriad of diverse topics.

Meet Tait