Memorial Day

The origins of Memorial Day (or Decoration Day, reflecting its primary activity of decorating soldiers' graves) in the United States have long been disputed. Essentially a day set aside to commemorate the dead of the Civil War, the debate over its origins—a debate that has now moved online—involves a variety of dates and a broad geographical range of places from Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, to Columbus, Mississippi, and several cities in between laying claim to the “first” Decoration Day ceremonies. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson officially designated Waterloo, New York, as the birthplace of Memorial Day, because Waterloo had celebrated the occasion in 1866 and had made it an annual event afterward. In 2001, historian David Blight pushed this date back further with a plausible argument that the first Decoration Day had, in fact, been organized by black South Carolinians and white abolitionists, and took place at Charleston's Race Course Cemetery in South Carolina on May 1, 1865.

Orphans decorating their fathers' graves in Glenwood Cemetery, Philadelphia, on Memorial Day

Source: The Illustrated London News. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Memorial Day's official incarnation, for the Union side at least, is generally dated to May 30, 1868, with a ceremony at Arlington (which later became the National Cemetery) and credited to the efforts of John Alexander Logan, founder of the Union veterans' organization, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). Logan had announced in General Orders No. 11 that May 30 of each year be “designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land. In this observance,” Logan proposed, “no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.” It was through the efforts of the GAR that Memorial Day became a national holiday. Because it was largely due to the GAR, Logan argued, that “an annual commemoration to the departed heroes of the war had been inaugurated,” to the GAR, therefore, fell the “mournful and pleasing duty of perpetuating it.” In the aftermath of an internecine war that had cost over 600,000 lives, the need for such a ceremony was strong and universal. Memorial Day became, as historian Michael Kammen notes, “an instant national tradition,” and over 31 states had adopted the day as a holiday by 1869.

The pattern that Memorial Day followed can be compared to early Armistice Day ceremonies in Europe. It was primarily a funereal occasion, constructed around and following the precepts of antebellum mourning ritual. A parade to the cemetery frequently led by veterans was followed by the laying of wreaths or flags on each individual grave and later, when the ceremony became more elaborate and, arguably, more political, formal speeches by politicians became a central focus for the proceedings, which usually had a musical accompaniment. By 1891, for example, Memorial Day in New York, as described by The New York Times, was a day-long event, beginning at 8:00 in the morning with parades, speeches, and the traditional oration and musical entertainment held in the Metropolitan Opera House, concluding with organized detachments of veterans decorating the various memorials to the Civil War (and to the Mexican War of 1846–1848) around the city. However elaborate it became in the city environment, for much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, [Page 715]Memorial Day remained focused on the local cemetery and on the graves of the dead, which were decorated with flowers. Civil War veterans were positioned at the center of the ceremony, but public officials, noncombatants, and ministers of religion offered prayers, eulogies, and speeches. Children were a significant element in Memorial Day, as they were in Armistice Day ceremonies. Sometimes their involvement was symbolic of Union sacrifice, as when the children of the Union Orphan Asylum in Baltimore were brought along to decorate their fathers' graves; at other times their involvement had a broader significance and symbolized the importance of Memorial Day as an occasion for reinforcing civic values and precepts among the generations growing up after war.

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