Union group established Decoration Day,
forerunner of modern Memorial Day

Three years after the Civil War ended (May 1868), the Grand Army of the Republic, composed of former Union soldiers and sailors, established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers.

The organization’s Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared it should be held on May 30.

The first large observance was held at Arlington National Cemetery, which held the remains of 20,000 Union and several hundred Confederate dead.

Local springtime tributes to the Civil War dead already had been held in various places. One of the first occurred in Columbus, Miss., on April 25, 1888, when a group of women visited a cemetery to decorate the graves of Confederate soldiers who had fallen in the Battle at Shiloh.

Nearby were the graves of Union soldiers, neglected because they were the enemy. Disturbed at the sight of the bare graves, the women placed some of their flowers on those graves as well.

By the end of the 19th century, Memorial Day ceremonies were being held on May 30 throughout the nation. State legislatures passed proclamations that designated the day as Memorial Day.

After World War I, the day was extended to honor all those in the American wars. In 1971, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday by an act of Congress and placed on the last Monday in May.

Many Southern states have their own days to remember the Confederate dead.

Mississippi celebrates Confederate Memorial Day on the last Monday in April, Alabama on the fourth Monday in April, North and South Carolina on May 10. Louisiana and Tennessee have Confederate Declaration Day on June 3. Texas celebrates Confederate Heroes Day on Jan. 19. In Virginia, the last Monday in May is Confederate Memorial Day.

Logan's order for his posts to decorate the graves in 1868, "with the choicest of flowers in the 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 to the coming generations that we have forgotten as people the cost of a free and undivided republic."

The crowd attending the first Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington was approximately the same as attend the present ceremonies, about 5,000. Then as now, small American flags were placed on each grave, a tradition followed at national cemeteries today. In recent years, the custom has grown in that many families decorate the graves of all loved ones.