tomder55
May 27, 2024, 02:31 AM
“That Nation which respects and honors its dead, shall ever be respected and honored itself.”
(Brevet Lieut.-Col. Edmund B. Whitman, 1868)
Officially proclaimed as a national day of Memorial by President Eisenhower ,May 24 .1955 .
STATUTE-69-PgC34-2.pdf (govinfo.gov) (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-69/pdf/STATUTE-69-PgC34-2.pdf)
But that was not the first .
On May 5, 1868, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), an organization of Union veterans led by Major General John A. Logan issued General Orders No. 11 or the "Memorial Day Act." This issuance established "Memorial Day" as a Decoration Day on which the nation would remember its war dead and decorate their graves with flowers.
"Memorial Day Order" - National Cemetery Administration (va.gov) (https://www.cem.va.gov/history/memdayorder.asp)
But this was not the first . Throughout the nation local communities held ceremonies honoring the dead soldiers of the Civil War.
Here are a couple of examples.
One was held in Boalsburg Pa . 3 women of the community in October 1864 decorated the graves of soldiers from the community who had died during the battle of Gettysburg.
In the late stages of the Civil War, the Confederate army transformed the formerly posh country club into a makeshift prison for Union captives. More than 260 Union soldiers died from disease and exposure while being held in the race track’s open-air infield. Their bodies were hastily buried in a mass grave behind the grandstands.
When Charleston fell and Confederate troops evacuated the badly damaged city, those freed from enslavement remained. One of the first things those emancipated men and women did was to give the fallen Union prisoners a proper burial. They exhumed the mass grave and reinterred the bodies in a new cemetery with a tall whitewashed fence inscribed with the words: “Martyrs of the Race Course.”
And then on May 1, 1865, something even more extraordinary happened. According to two reports that Blight found in The New York Tribune and The Charleston Courier, a crowd of 10,000 people, mostly freed slaves (https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/slavery) with some white missionaries, staged a parade around the race track. Three thousand Black schoolchildren carried bouquets of flowers and sang “John Brown’s Body.” Members of the famed 54th Massachusetts and other Black Union regiments were in attendance and performed double-time marches. Black ministers recited verses from the Bible.
One of the Earliest Memorial Day Ceremonies Was Held by Freed African Americans | HISTORY (https://www.history.com/news/memorial-day-civil-war-slavery-charleston)
The dead at the racetrack were removed by the Army and relocated to their final resting place at a national cemetery in Beaufort, South Carolina.
(Brevet Lieut.-Col. Edmund B. Whitman, 1868)
Officially proclaimed as a national day of Memorial by President Eisenhower ,May 24 .1955 .
STATUTE-69-PgC34-2.pdf (govinfo.gov) (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-69/pdf/STATUTE-69-PgC34-2.pdf)
But that was not the first .
On May 5, 1868, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), an organization of Union veterans led by Major General John A. Logan issued General Orders No. 11 or the "Memorial Day Act." This issuance established "Memorial Day" as a Decoration Day on which the nation would remember its war dead and decorate their graves with flowers.
"Memorial Day Order" - National Cemetery Administration (va.gov) (https://www.cem.va.gov/history/memdayorder.asp)
But this was not the first . Throughout the nation local communities held ceremonies honoring the dead soldiers of the Civil War.
Here are a couple of examples.
One was held in Boalsburg Pa . 3 women of the community in October 1864 decorated the graves of soldiers from the community who had died during the battle of Gettysburg.
In the late stages of the Civil War, the Confederate army transformed the formerly posh country club into a makeshift prison for Union captives. More than 260 Union soldiers died from disease and exposure while being held in the race track’s open-air infield. Their bodies were hastily buried in a mass grave behind the grandstands.
When Charleston fell and Confederate troops evacuated the badly damaged city, those freed from enslavement remained. One of the first things those emancipated men and women did was to give the fallen Union prisoners a proper burial. They exhumed the mass grave and reinterred the bodies in a new cemetery with a tall whitewashed fence inscribed with the words: “Martyrs of the Race Course.”
And then on May 1, 1865, something even more extraordinary happened. According to two reports that Blight found in The New York Tribune and The Charleston Courier, a crowd of 10,000 people, mostly freed slaves (https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/slavery) with some white missionaries, staged a parade around the race track. Three thousand Black schoolchildren carried bouquets of flowers and sang “John Brown’s Body.” Members of the famed 54th Massachusetts and other Black Union regiments were in attendance and performed double-time marches. Black ministers recited verses from the Bible.
One of the Earliest Memorial Day Ceremonies Was Held by Freed African Americans | HISTORY (https://www.history.com/news/memorial-day-civil-war-slavery-charleston)
The dead at the racetrack were removed by the Army and relocated to their final resting place at a national cemetery in Beaufort, South Carolina.