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National Civil War Museum Explores History of 'Taps'.

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HARRISBURG, Pa., May 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Each Memorial Day, ceremonies across the country echo with the sound of a plaintive bugle call, played to honor those who died in America's wars.

The call is "Taps" and it dates back to the American Civil War.

"There are some heart-warming myths about 'Taps,'" warns George Hicks, the executive director of the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The Museum, which opened in 2001, has 65,000 square feet of exhibit space that tells the story of the entire conflict, without sectional bias.

The Museum's exhibit about Civil War music includes six battered and tarnished bugles that served during the conflict. Visitors can use headphones to hear several bugle calls, including "Taps."

The Museum includes "Taps" on its list of Civil War "firsts" because during the war it emerged as the army's bugle call to signal lights out.

The man responsible for "Taps" as we know it today was the Union's Brigadier General Daniel Butterfield. Born in Utica, New York, in 1831, Butterfield commanded a brigade in General George McClellan's Army of the Potomac during the Peninsula Campaign of 1862, when the Union attempted to capture Richmond. The Confederates, under General Robert E. Lee, beat back the Union offensive in a series of intense battles known as the Seven Days' campaign.

During that campaign Butterfield distinguished himself at Gaines' Mill...

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