Did you know that Memorial day was instituted as result of the Civil War?

2016-05-30T16:48:41-04:00

There is some debate about the origins of Memorial Day in this nation. Certainly families and those who served alongside servicemen who died in times past did their best to honor the dead in the civil war. Sometimes truces were made to bury the dead while other times savagery and revenge prevailed.
“Memorial Day was started by former slaves on May, 1, 1865, in Charleston, S.C., to honor 257 dead Union soldiers who had been buried in a mass grave in an upscale race track converted into a Confederate prison camp. They dug up the bodies and worked for two weeks to give them a proper burial as gratitude for fighting for their freedom. They then held a parade of 10,000 people led by 3,000 Black children, where they marched, sang and celebrated.”
To dedicate the cemetery to the Union’s war dead, Black and white leaders came together to organize a parade of 10,000 people, described in a New York Tribune account as “a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina and the United States never saw before.” At the front of the parade were 3,000 Black children, laden with roses and singing “John Brown’s Body,” while bringing up the rear were a brigade of Union troops, including the Massachusetts 54th Regiment and the 34th and 104th United States Colored Troops. (The commander of the 21st United States Colored Infantry had been the one to formally accept the city’s surrender.) Following the parade and dedication in the cemetery, the crowd settled down to picnic, listen to orators and watch the troops march.
In the years to come, there would be many variations on Memorial (or “Decoration”) Day before the nation settled on the holiday’s current form.“
On memorial Day 2016 I pray that every family member and friend who served with each Soldier, Sailor, Marine and Airman is comforted by the Lord God and by human friends who will come alongside them as they mourn.

Pictures: 1865-5-1 The FIRST Memorial Day ever was marked by former Slaves of Charleston, SC;
1865 First-Memorial-Day-honoring-257-Union-soldier-martyrs-10000-freedmen-march-led-by-3000-children; 1865-05-02 charlestondailynews-short
The Black History of Memorial Day
New-York Historical Scholar Trustee David Blight speaks about a Memorial Day celebration that took place on May 1, 1865. That day, Black workmen went to the site of an outdoor Confederate prison and in Charleston, South Carolina, and reburied the dead Union soldiers that had been left in a mass grave. They built a high fence around the property to protect the site, then joined with white missionaries and teachers in a march of 10,000 around the grounds. Trustee Blight believes this event—which he discovered during the course of archival research—to have been the earliest Memorial Day, founded by African Americans in a ritual of remembrance and consecration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOXqoKmTNG0

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The First Memorial Day with David W. Blight

When Memorial Day was first celebrated, America was learning to be America again. More than 600,000 soldiers had fallen over four years, and the wounds had n...

Response by LTC Stephen F. made May 30 at 2016 4:59 PM

2016-05-30T16:59:04-04:00

As a student of history as well as a veteran soldier, I am well aware that Memorial day was instituted after the carnage of the U.S. Civil War and that there were many memorials for dead soldiers which took place in many places as the Civil War was drawing to a close in May 1865. Certainly each family and those who served with soldiers on both sides who were killed or died as a result of the war grieved the death of their loved ones. The family members generally did not see the state of the bodies as they were removed from the battlefield since morticians were able to make them more presentable in many cases. Those who served alongside somebody who was hit my a Minié ball, or cannon shot or bayoneted most likely remembered that for the rest of their lives. Those who fought in many battles probably could not keep track of the numbers of soldiers they had seen killed.
I expect the same could be said of those who served in combat during WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War and many extended subsequent wars.

Image: Memorial at Gettysburg, PA where Major General John F. Reynolds was mortally wounded on July 1, 1863
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Response by TSgt Joe C. made May 30 at 2016 5:35 PM

2016-05-30T17:35:44-04:00

Very good information! LTC Stephen F. I appreciate that!

Response by SGT John " Mac " McConnell made May 30 at 2016 5:44 PM

2016-05-30T17:44:59-04:00

From Yale University historian David W. Blight:

At the end of the Civil War the dead were everywhere, some in half buried coffins and some visible only as unidentified bones strewn on the killing fields of Virginia or Georgia. Americans, north and south, faced an enormous spiritual and logistical challenge of memorialization. The dead were visible by their massive absence. Approximately 620,000 soldiers died in the war. American deaths in all other wars combined through the Korean conflict totaled 606,000. If the same number of Americans per capita had died in Vietnam as died in the Civil War, 4 million names would be on the Vietnam Memorial. The most immediate legacy of the Civil War was its slaughter and how remember it.

War kills people and destroys human creation; but as though mocking war’s devastation, flowers inevitably bloom through its ruins. After a long siege, a prolonged bombardment for months from all around the harbor, and numerous fires, the beautiful port city of Charleston, South Carolina, where the war had begun in April, 1861, lay in ruin by the spring of 1865. The city was largely abandoned by white residents by late February. Among the first troops to enter and march up Meeting Street singing liberation songs was the Twenty First U. S. Colored Infantry; their commander accepted the formal surrender of the city.

Thousands of black Charlestonians, most former slaves, remained in the city and conducted a series of commemorations to declare their sense of the meaning of the war. The largest of these events, and unknown until some extraordinary luck in my recent research, took place on May 1, 1865. During the final year of the war, the Confederates had converted the planters’ horse track, the Washington Race Course and Jockey Club, into an outdoor prison. Union soldiers were kept in horrible conditions in the interior of the track; at least 257 died of exposure and disease and were hastily buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand. Some twenty-eight black workmen went to the site, re-buried the Union dead properly, and built a high fence around the cemetery. They whitewashed the fence and built an archway over an entrance on which they inscribed the words, “Martyrs of the Race Course.”

Then, black Charlestonians in cooperation with white missionaries and teachers, staged an unforgettable parade of 10,000 people on the slaveholders’ race course. The symbolic power of the low-country planter aristocracy’s horse track (where they had displayed their wealth, leisure, and influence) was not lost on the freedpeople. A New York Tribune correspondent witnessed the event, describing “a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina and the United States never saw before.”

At 9 am on May 1, the procession stepped off led by three thousand black schoolchildren carrying arm loads of roses and singing “John Brown’s Body.” The children were followed by several hundred black women with baskets of flowers, wreaths and crosses. Then came black men marching in cadence, followed by contingents of Union infantry and other black and white citizens. As many as possible gathering in the cemetery enclosure; a childrens’ choir sang “We’ll Rally around the Flag,” the “Star-Spangled Banner,” and several spirituals before several black ministers read from scripture. No record survives of which biblical passages rung out in the warm spring air, but the spirit of Leviticus 25 was surely present at those burial rites: “for it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you… in the year of this jubilee he shall return every man unto his own possession.”

Following the solemn dedication the crowd dispersed into the infield and did what many of us do on Memorial Day: they enjoyed picnics, listened to speeches, and watched soldiers drill. Among the full brigade of Union infantry participating was the famous 54th Massachusetts and the 34th and 104th U.S. Colored Troops, who performed a special double-columned march around the gravesite. The war was over, and Decoration Day had been founded by African Americans in a ritual of remembrance and consecration. The war, they had boldly announced, had been all about the triumph of their emancipation over a slaveholders’ republic, and not about state rights, defense of home, nor merely soldiers’ valor and sacrifice. …

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made May 30 at 2016 7:45 PM

2016-05-30T19:45:49-04:00

You might care to watch a PBS documentary on a few months back on its origin , I think though I'm not entirely sure, on American Experience, I believe the plot had to do with the evolution of the DVA Natl cemetery admin or NCA, it was actually a really unusual presentation, covering aspects historically relevant to what you'd been mentioning I'd never seen covered in any other documentary, I don't recall exactly when it was on if I find it, I'll try to send it, however, I think that it was on that program ,however also, I'm fairly sure it was a PBS broadcast, hope was of interest, many thanks.

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made May 30 at 2016 7:47 PM

2016-05-30T19:47:14-04:00

I'll have to look for it, imcant recall the exact title, I just know it dealt with the growth of the VA cemeteries, and did, as I recall, discuss the origins of Meml Day, as I remember, many thanks.