DECORATION DAY, OR MEMORIAL DAY
Three
years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the head of an organization of
former Union soldiers and sailors – the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) –
established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of
the war dead with flowers. Major General John A. Logan declared it should be
May 30. The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National
Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The cemetery already
held the remains of 20,000 Union dead and several hundred Confederate dead.
The
ceremonies centered around the mourning-draped veranda of the Arlington
mansion, once the home of General Robert E. Lee. General and Mrs. Ulysses S.
Grant and other Washington officials presided. After speeches, children from
the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphan Home and members of the GAR made their way
through the cemetery, strewing flowers on both Union and Confederate graves,
reciting prayers and singing hymns.
Many
Southern states also have their own days for honoring the Confederate dead.
Mississippi celebrates Memorial Day the last Monday of April, Alabama on the
fourth Monday of April, and Georgia on April 26. North and South Carolina
observe it May 10, Louisiana on June 3 and Tennessee calls that date
Confederate Decoration Day. Texas celebrates Confederate Heroes Day January 19
and Virginia calls the last Monday in May Confederate Memorial Day.
General
Logan’s order for his posts to decorate graves in 1868 “with the choicest
flowers of springtime” urged: “We should guard their graves with sacred
vigilance. …Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors
and fond mourners. Let no neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present
or the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free
and undivided republic.”
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