tomder55
May 31, 2021, 03:52 AM
As we prepare to celebrate Memorial Day by remembering those who have given the ultimate sacrifice, it is important to look back to the holiday’s origins. The first Memorial Day celebration, then called “Decoration Day”, was held on May 5, 1866 in Waterloo, NY to honor local veterans who had fought in the Civil War, which ended just a year before. Other cities including Macon, GA, Columbus, GA, Richmond, VA, Boalsburg, PA, Carbondale, IL and Columbus, MS also held early “Decoration Day” events, marked by decoration of veteran’s graves.
Three years after the end of the Civil War in 1868, an organization made up of Union veterans, called the Grand Army of the Republic, officially established Decoration Day as a time for the country to honor their war dead by decorating their graves with flowers. The first nationally-recognized Decoration Day was held on May 30, 1868. Throughout the next 100 years, communities throughout the US took up the annual practice but honored fallen soldiers in different ways and on different spring days. That is until 1971 when Congress declared Memorial Day a national holiday and set its day of observance for the last Monday in May.
Many count 1866, 1868 or 1971 as the year that Memorial Day came into existence. However, the spirit of Memorial Day was brought to life even before the Civil War ended. It was a lawyer’s short speech of less than 300 words that historians think was hastily written on a train ride to the 1863 event that now comes to mind during our modern-day Memorial Day parades and barbeques. That lawyer was President Abraham Lincoln and the speech was the now-famous and oft-quoted Gettysburg Address given on Nov. 19, 1863 in commemoration of the final resting places of 51,000 Americans in Gettysburg, PA........"
"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Three years after the end of the Civil War in 1868, an organization made up of Union veterans, called the Grand Army of the Republic, officially established Decoration Day as a time for the country to honor their war dead by decorating their graves with flowers. The first nationally-recognized Decoration Day was held on May 30, 1868. Throughout the next 100 years, communities throughout the US took up the annual practice but honored fallen soldiers in different ways and on different spring days. That is until 1971 when Congress declared Memorial Day a national holiday and set its day of observance for the last Monday in May.
Many count 1866, 1868 or 1971 as the year that Memorial Day came into existence. However, the spirit of Memorial Day was brought to life even before the Civil War ended. It was a lawyer’s short speech of less than 300 words that historians think was hastily written on a train ride to the 1863 event that now comes to mind during our modern-day Memorial Day parades and barbeques. That lawyer was President Abraham Lincoln and the speech was the now-famous and oft-quoted Gettysburg Address given on Nov. 19, 1863 in commemoration of the final resting places of 51,000 Americans in Gettysburg, PA........"
"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."