Memorial (Decoration) Day

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MEMORIAL (DECORATION) DAY

Memorial Day was the first American holiday created to commemorate dead soldiers. The carnage of the Civil War demanded some ritual of remembrance, and the cemetery provided the place for the ritual of grave decoration. Women began to decorate soldiers' graves during the war, and this practice developed into Memorial Day and Confederate Memorial Day. In 1966 Congress officially recognized Waterloo, New York, as the town that held the first Memorial Day on May 5, 1866.

The annual holiday was created in 1868 by a Union veterans' organization, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). Gen. John Logan, commander-in-chief of the GAR, designated May 30 as Memorial Day and ordered all posts to decorate the graves of their fallen comrades. The idea of Memorial Day spread quickly, as the GAR made the observance obligatory for each member and lobbied for official recognition of the holiday. Congress made Memorial Day a federal holiday in 1876, and by the 1880s most states outside the former Confederacy had legalized it.

Local GAR posts sponsored Memorial Day exercises in cemeteries across the nation, including the national cemeteries established in the former Confederacy. The featured rituals were speeches by distinguished veterans, who recalled the sacrifices and heroism of the dead, and decoration of the soldiers' graves with flowers woven into wreaths by members of the Women's Relief Corps. The ceremonies might also feature the dedication of a monument to the dead, and concluded with the playing of taps and a twenty-one-gun salute.

After Reconstruction ended in the late 1870s, Memorial Day attendance began to decline. The GAR added military parades to attract crowds and condemned the desecration of its sacred holiday by civilians who seemed more interested in recreation and sports than commemorating dead soldiers. In this it found common cause with Confederate veterans, and the former foes turned to each other for recognition of their valor and to recapture the camaraderie of battle. A series of Blue and Gray reunions occurred in the late nineteenth century, often held on Memorial Day, but this reconciliation was clearly for white veterans only. In the North African Americans had to join segregated GAR posts, and in the South white and black GAR posts held separate holiday exercises.

By the end of the century, diverse groups of Americans had embraced Memorial Day, but it meant different things to different people. Immigrants honored their

countrymen who had fought in the Civil War with expressions of ethnic and American loyalty. Politicians promoted their own policies. For example, President Theodore Roosevelt used his 1902 address at the GAR's Arlington National Cemetery exercises to justify the American conquest of the Philippines. Many Americans without any ties to the Civil War dead decorated the graves of dead relatives on Memorial Day, which became popularly known as Decoration Day. The GAR campaigned against this new name, however, arguing that it did not properly reflect the holiday's purpose of memorializing dead soldiers and veterans. Most poignantly, as white veterans of North and South reconciled, it was left to their black comrades to remind Americans on Memorial Day that the Union army had fought for freedom for African Americans.