Your tail light power originates at the fuse panel where the red wire from the battery harness connects and feeds the stop/turn/tail fuse. From there an orange wire branches out and feeds the headlight switch, the brake light switch, and the dome light. It also feeds the green wire on the headlight switch which runs through the dash light variable resistor and back to the fuse panel to the PNL LTS fuse, where a gray wire runs to the dash cluster to feed the panel lights.
When you blew the stop/turn/tail fuse you lost those functions. when you replaced the fuse it restored the brakes and turn lights. What I suspect happened is that the brown wire which runs from the headlight switch shorted at some point in the circuit and opened the tail light circuit which accounts for not blowing the fuse again.
The tail lights are powered by a brown wire from the headlight switch, which runs through the connector in the firewall behind the distributor, and down the firewall along the frame with the turn/brake and backup light wires. Check along that harness and at the tail lights for a break in the wiring.
Here's a picture diagram of the harness. The fuse panel is in the lower right corner and the panel lights wire is marked by the arrow. The orange wires are shown also.
Here's a diagram of the headlight switch wiring from the fuse panel.
here's the tailight and dome harness.
