By Steve Edwards
BCJ Reporter 

Modern Memorial Day has roots in old south and post-Civil War era

 

May 24, 2017

Steve Edwards

Veterans' groups around Blaine County organize memorial services each year as a part of Memorial Day celebrations. At Kuper Cemetery, outside Chinook, Will Mangold (left) a retired veteran and Art Kleinjan, a veteran with the Chinook American Legion Post, are pictured during a Memorial Day event a couple of years ago.

Reporters Note: Memorial Day, now the last Monday in May, will soon be on us. There will be memorial services from Arlington National Cemetery to local cemeteries. Blaine County will have a number of events at various cemeteries. Graves will be decorated, especially those of deceased veterans, and many of us will take a moment to remember our deceased family members and friends.

When asked to write a short history of Memorial Day for the newspaper, I was interested to learn about a holiday I've been celebrating since I was in grade school (we used to decorate our bicycles with flags and ride in the parade out to the cemetery). Here's a bit of what I discovered about how Memorial Day became a federal holiday.

Honoring fallen soldiers from the Civil War

The idea of a holiday to honor the fallen soldiers of the Civil War, particularly those on the Union side, was the beginning of our modern Memorial Day. Where and when Memorial Day first started is somewhat in dispute, as the following history of the holiday will show.

Even predating the Civil Way was a southern celebration known as Decoration Day. This was, and still is in some locations, a time when people gathered to clean and decorate cemetery plots and remember the dead. Decoration Day events tend to follow a pattern-families show up on a Saturday to clean the graveyard, then on Sunday have a worship service and a picnic dinner on the grounds. Historians say Decoration Day was a phenomenon of southern Appalachia (Tennessee and Kentucky, northern parts of Alabama and Georgia. Forty years ago, when my wife and I moved to Athens, Georgia, many rural churches still scheduled Decoration Day).

The southern Decoration Day was not a specific day, but varied by local area. Generally, it was a day between the busy times on the farm (not planting or harvesting times) and when plenty of flowers were available. After the graves were cleaned and spruced up, the graves and headstones were decorated with flowers. On Sunday, if the cemetery was near a church, there would be a service at the church, then dinner on the grounds. Many of the old cement picnic tables still survive along the edges of the cemeteries where Decoration Days were held. Decoration Day was celebrated long before the American Civil War.

Two events, immediately after the Civil War ended, are sometimes cited as the start of modern Memorial Day. In 1865 a group of freed slaves, in Charleston, South Carolina, created a cemetery for the bodies of Union prisoners of war who had died in Charleston. The slaves reburied a number of soldiers, then held a memorial service. Most historians acknowledge the event but do not necessarily tie it to the beginnings of the modern holiday.

A year later, in the town of Waterloo, New York, after a local druggist suggested that the fallen Union soldiers should be memorialized as well as the living veterans, organized a parade to the three cemeteries in the area and decorated the veterans' graves. Decorating the town and the veterans' graves was repeated the next year and continued.

The idea that Waterloo was the first official Memorial Day service was given credence when in 1966, 100 years after the first community-wide celebration there, President Lyndon Johnson, by presidential proclamation, declared Waterloo, New York as "The Birthplace of Memorial Day."

Memorial Despite that official recognition, many other towns and areas still resolutely lay claim to having held the first Memorial Day service.

Order No. 11 issued by General John A. Logan

John A. Logan was a native of southern Illinois who rose to the rank of general, with no formal military training, for the Union during the Civil War. Logan, commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, issued an order declaring "The 30th of May, 1868, is 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." This first official action at the national level is regarded as the start of Memorial Day, even though it was still referred to as Decoration Day (perhaps from the southern tradition). There was a major celebration at Arlington Cemetery in Washington, DC that May and the graves of 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried there were decorated.

Because of the especially raw feelings still left from the Civil War, most southern states did not officially adopt the May date to celebrate a Memorial or Decoration Day until after World War I, when soldiers from all wars were honored. By 1890 most all northern states had adopted the national Memorial Day.

Montana had just become a state during this period, (statehood came in 1889) but the desire to honor deceased veterans with a special day was already in place. A story in "The Chinook Opinion" in the spring of 1890 (just four issues after the paper began) outlined "Decoration Day Exercises" that were held in the town hall. The program included a number of readings and a tribute to Abraham Lincoln presented by locals. There were musical numbers and several patriotic songs sung by the entire audience. Interestingly, the event began at 3 pm suggesting businesses were still open and school was in session (May 30 of 1890 was a Friday. Older readers will recall that for many years Memorial Day was celebrated on May 30, whatever day of the week it fell on. This was before Congress made a change in 1971 to always celebrate the day on the last Friday of May).

Twenty-five years later, a 1917 edition of "The Chinook Opinion" described the memorial event set for May, 31. By then the holiday was referred to as Memorial Day, with the official celebration in the afternoon. In 1917 the event was held in the courtroom at the court house (Blaine County was created in 1912). The nation was locked in the throes of World War I, so much of the program was dedicated to recognizing the current role of the military and the supreme price many soldiers had already paid. At the end of the program, all were welcomed to proceed to the cemetery and decorate the graves of soldiers and family.

Formalizing of Memorial Day at the national level

In 1971, more than a century after General Logan's order, Congress passed the National Holiday Act, making Memorial Day a part of the 'three-day weekend' pattern for federal holidays. Since that law was passed, the actual date for Memorial Day may vary, but will always be officially celebrated on the last Monday in May. Of the eleven states that made up the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, seven still celebrate state Confederate Memorial Day in addition to the federal holiday.

Congress made one more tweak to Memorial Day in 2000, when it established the National Moment of Remembrance which asks Americans, wherever they are at 3pm on Memorial Day, "to pause in an act of national unity for a duration of one minute." The Moment legislation was recommended by the White House Commission on Remembrance that was charged to create activities to help citizens remember and appropriately celebrate Memorial Day.

Courtesy Photo

The southern Decoration Day, when private and church cemeteries were cleaned and flowers were placed on graves, likely influenced the ultimate creation of a national Memorial Day. Though somewhat diminished in recent years, Decoration Day events still occur in southern Appalachia.

Supposedly, the Commissioner of the Remembrance Commission asked a group of school kids touring the nation's capital what Memorial Day was. The kids responded, "The day the pool opens." A Gallup poll showed that only 28% of Americans could explain the purpose of Memorial Day. The commission came up with the National Moment of Remembrance as a way to get citizens to think about the sacrifices made by veterans. The moment has gained traction with a number of major groups (NASCAR, Major League Baseball, Amtrak, to name a few) that take some action to observe the national moment on Memorial Day. (I did a quick survey at two senior coffee groups in Chinook and no one had heard of the National Moment of Remembrance.)

So, whatever way you celebrate this Memorial Day, at least take a moment (preferably at 3 pm) to remember the role of veterans have played in assuring our freedoms. Better yet, attend one of the planned events around Blaine County to remember veterans as well as fallen friends and family.

 
 

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