Which bugle call is played at military funerals and at day’s end?

In July 1862, at Harrison’s Landing, Virginia, Union General Daniel Butterfield reworked an older bugle call to signal lights out. His brigade bugler, Oliver Norton, played it for the first time, and other units soon adopted it.

That same summer, a Union captain whose soldier had died ordered Taps played at the burial instead of a rifle volley, which might have been mistaken for an attack. The custom spread to both sides.

Taps has just 24 notes. It became an official Army bugle call in 1874 and is now sounded at military funerals, wreath-layings and memorial services across the nation.