What is the history and tradition of Taps?
Taps is the bugle call sounded at funerals. The call originated during the Civil War and is sounded every night at US military installations around the words as well as used as the final call at military funerals and memorial services. Of all the military bugle calls, none is so easily recognized or more apt to evoke emotion than Taps. Up to the Civil War, the traditional call at days end was a call borrowed from the French, called “Extinguish Lights.” In July of 1862, in the aftermath of the bloody Seven Days battles, hard on the loss of 600 men and wounded himself, Union General Daniel Adams Butterfield called the brigade bugler to his tent. He thought “Extinguish Lights” was too formal and he wished to honor his men. Oliver Willcox Norton, the bugler, tells the story, “…showing me some notes on a staff written in pencil on the back of an envelope, (he) asked me to sound them on my bugle. I did this several times, playing the music as written. He changed it somewhat, lengthening so
