Vol 2, No 6
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In 1862, following the Seven Days battle in the American Civil War, Brigadier General Daniel Adams Butterfield was in camp at Harrison’s Landing. He called his bugler, Oliver W. Norton, to his tent. Butterfield presented Norton with a copy of Tattoo from Winfield Scott’s manual of military drills and calls. Butterfield altered the tune with Norton playing the versions while keeping the original melody but lengthening some notes and shortening others. He gave an order that the final version was to be used instead of Lights Out to end the day.
This tune spread from unit to unit until every unit in the Army of the
Potomac was using it.
In 1862, during the Peninsular Campaign, the two armies were very close.
A cannoneer was killed, and Captain John C. Tidball, in charge of the burial,
was afraid to have the usual three volleys fired over the grave.
He instead ordered that the new tune, Lights Out, be played.
By now the tune was called Taps, and it has been used ever since by the
U.S. Armed Services at funerals, laying of wreaths and other solemn occasions.
The first sounding of Taps at a military funeral is commemorated
in a stained glass window at The Chapel of the Centurion
at Fort Monroe, Virginia.
No official words have been set to the 24 notes of Taps. The following words may be the most popular of many. From the hills, from the lake, From the sky. All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.
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for the Smart Science home page.
Three dots and a dash are familiar to music lovers the world over
as the first four notes of Beethoven's fifth symphony.
In the words of Norton,
In addition to creating Taps, General Butterfield developed his own bugle call.
It was sounded before any bugle call that was directed to the troops under
his command and only to his own troops.
He wrote regarding this call,