One of my relatives recently forwarded an email myth recounting the alleged origin of “Taps,” the bugle call played at military funerals and at lights-out in the evening. I checked out the story at a Web site by a U.S. Air Force bugler who styles himself a bugle historian, who sums up the story as follows:
Almost every day when I check my e-mails, I get a message or two asking about or forwarding a story for my comment or enlightenment. It starts with, “It all began during the Civil War…” and goes on to relate the story of a Union Captain Ellicombe and how he finds his wounded Confederate son on a battlefield.
The story is that the music of Taps is found in the pocket of the young man and that’s how the call came into being. It is a heartwarming and poignant story…
But according to the USAF bugler, the story has zero basis in fact — “Taps” was in fact composed by Daniel Adams Butterfield and Oliver Willcox Norton as a variation on a French bugle call:
The story of Captain Robert Ellicombe and his Confederate son is a myth, a fake, a tall tale, a good story to tell around the old campfire, but a story that holds no truth whatsoever. This is one of those stories that is reprinted and forwarded to others and makes its way around the Internet around Memorial Day, Independence Day and Veterans Day. The story gets printed in papers, newsletters, and, sad to say, even on some military websites as the true version of how the bugle call of Taps came into existence. * * *
We know much about the two men involved with the creation of Taps. Both Daniel Adams Butterfield and Oliver Willcox Norton survived the Civil War and went on to become prosperous and respected businessmen and citizens. They wrote about their Civil War experiences and of the creation of Taps in July 1862.
There is no proof that a Captain Robert Ellicombe ever existed. The myth gives no indication of what unit or state he served. …
Why do I post this here? Because it’s yet another illustration that humans routinely come up with stories that have no apparent basis in fact, and others pass along such stories as though they were gospel. Consequently, we do well to be guarded in our acceptance of unsupported stories — especially when it matters.
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