West Point Urban Legends

A lot of people think getting into West Point is political. While this is true of some, the overwhelming majority of cadets are smart, athletic students who do not come from affluent families. They are driven people who have worked extremely hard and who want to make a difference. In order to make it through West Point, you first have to make up your mind that this is what you want to do.

Taps – According to an old urban legend, a father and son were fighting on opposite sides in the Civil War, and they met one last time on the battlefield. As the father was holding his dying son in his arms, he looked in his son's pocket and found a melody, which is now known as ‘Taps.’ Taps was composed in July 1862 at Harrison's Landing in Virginia, but after that, the fanciful legend parts way with reality. There was no dead son, Confederate, or otherwise; no lone bugler sounding out the dead boy's last composition. How the call came into being was never anything more than one influential soldier deciding his unit could use a bugle call for particular occasions and setting about to come up with one.