A viral and false Facebook post from 2014 about the origins of the military’s bugle melody known as “Taps” is receiving a new surge of shares. The old post tells a fabricated Civil War story of a Union Army captain finding the composition for “Taps” in his dead son’s Confederate Army uniform. This is false, just as we published in our original fact check back in 2008.
According to Google Trends, readers who saw the post on Facebook this week searched on Google for “how did ‘Taps’ originate,” “who wrote ‘Taps’ and why,” “history of ‘Taps’ lyrics,” and “the story behind ‘Taps.'”
The post was originally created on April 5, 2014. It likely went viral in April 2022 due to it being the anniversary of the post. It’s unclear why its eighth anniversary was the magic one where its shares skyrocketed from around 100,000 on April 10 to nearly 400,000 total by April 12:
The post with the fabricated story read as follows:
I never knew.. DID YOU?
If any of you have ever been to a military funeral in which taps was played; this brings out a new meaning of it.
Here is something Every American should know.
We in the United States have all heard the haunting song, ‘Taps…’ It’s the song that gives us the lump in our throats and usually tears in our eyes.
But, do you know the story behind the song? If not, I think you will be interested to find out about its humble beginnings.
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