WHY THE NAME “TAPS”?

Taps is the name of the final call of the evening in the United States military. The call is sounded at an interval after Tattoo.  There are  a few explanations for the name of Taps and the meaning of Taps. It is not an acronym, although there are two organizations that exist using the acronym. T.A.P.S.-Tragedy Assistance Program and TAPS-The Atlantic Paranormal Society.

One explanation is that Taps is derived from the Dutch words Tap-toe or Tattoo. The call of Tattoo was used to assemble soldiers for the final roll call of the day. Tattoo may have originated during the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) or during King William III’s wars in the 1690s. The word tattoo in this context comes from the Dutch tap (faucet) and toe (to cut off). When it was time to stop drinking for the evening and return to the post, the provost or Officer of the Day, along with a sergeant and drummer, would go through the town beating out the signal. According to military regulations, there was a scheduled roll call at “Taptoe time” to ensure all troops had returned to their billets. It is possible that the word Tattoo evolved into Taps. Tattoo was also called Tap-toe, and like many slang terms in the military, it was shortened to Taps.

The other, and more likely, explanation is that the name Taps was derived from a drummer’s beat. The drum corps would play Tattoo, followed by the Drummer of the Guard striking three distinct drum taps at four-count intervals during the military evolution Extinguish Lights. During the American Civil War, Extinguish Lights was the bugle call used as the final call of the day, and as the name suggests, it was a signal to extinguish all fires and lights. After the call, three single drum strokes were played at four-count intervals. This was known as the “Drum Taps” or, in soldier slang, “The Taps” or simply “Taps.” Numerous references to the term “Taps” exist from before the war and during the conflict, predating the bugle call we all recognize today. Thus, the drum beat following Extinguish Lights came to be called “Taps” by common soldiers, and when a new bugle call was created in July 1862 to replace the more formal sounding Extinguish Lights (the one Butterfield disliked), it also became known as “Taps.”

Though soldiers already called the drum signal “Taps,” the name gradually attached to Butterfield’s new melody as well. Yet for nearly three decades the Army’s manuals knew it only by its formal title, “Extinguish Lights.” It was not until 1891 that the word Taps officially appeared in military regulation, long after the soldiers themselves had adopted it in the field. By then, the call’s transformation—from Dutch tavern command to sacred American salute—was complete. What began as a signal to close the day had become, fittingly, the final music to close a life’s duty.