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"TAPS"
"Taps" is a string of heart rending notes that is played by a lone bugler.
It was originally an alternative to "Lights Out" but it also became a good-bye to fallen comrads.
This tune was given words much later and below is a recording that John Wayne did about that Taps melody.
If you would like to hear the song as you read just click on the Taps record.
'TAPS'
It was July in Virginia, the scent of the dogwood and laurel lay heavy on the land. While the virgining fruit of the peach and the apple mark the full sway of summer.
For 7 fatefull days the trees, the flowers, yes the very ground itself had shuttered with the roar of cannon, barking howitzers and a crackling of a legion of rifles.---Now all was silent.
A sledge hammer of blows under Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson had mauled the army of the Potomac and yet that army was not destroyed.
7000 men had fallen in that dreadfull week and the savagery of the conflict was grimly evident in the river of wounded that wound through the green hills.
Now a new sound drifted in the soft evening sky.
A General Dan Butterfield, a courageous and able soldier was also a man of music. To honor his fallen comrads he had composed a simple but heart rending melody.
On July 2 in the year of 1862 it's strains floated over the graves of that scarred dark Virginia earth.
It has been more than 100 years since that sound was born but those notes have never died away.
Every night of the year throughout the world fighting men of America from the north and the south, east and the west, close their eyes and sleep to its call.
In each of their hearts there glows a fierce surge of pride.
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