Memorial Day Explained
As I sat curled up on my sofa in sweats wrapped in a blanket and I turned up the heat as I struggled to recall a labor day as cold, and rainy as this year. The beaches were empty and pool water was still except for the endless overflowing raindrops. While the backyard barbeques were spoiled by the nasty weather, I had some time to think about the true meaning of Memorial day, not just the annual commencement of summer activities. I remember as a child watching the men in tan vests approach our car handing out red poppies at the traffic lights and never understood the significance. My curiosity led me to do some research as the rain pelted on my window.
Memorial Day was established to honor those who died serving in the military and it became an official federal holiday in 1971. A national moment of remembrance takes place at 3:00 p.m each Memorial Day.
As we chomp on our first burger of the summer and cannonball into the pool, we may overlook the history of Memorial Day and how it began as an opportunity to honor Union soldiers who had died during the Civil War. After the Civil War, the United States was faced with the task of burying and honoring the 600,000 to 800,000 Union and Confederate soldiers who had died in the bloodiest military conflict in American history. The Civil War ended in the spring of 1865, and the massive death toll required the country establish its first national cemeteries to bury our soldiers.The Southern states honored their dead on a holiday they named Decoration Day every May 30th and it evolved into Memorial Day.
President Lyndon Johnson named Waterloo, New York, as the “Birthplace of Memorial Day,” because on May 5, 1866 Waterloo began an annual event, during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers. In the late 1860s, Americans began springtime tributes for the countless fallen soldiers, and decorated their graves with flowers,a tradition which we continue today.
On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, leader of an organization for Northern Civil War veterans, officially called for a day of remembrance. “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,” he said. On the first Declaration Fay, Arlington National Cemetery hosted 5,000 participants who decorated the graves of the 20,000 Civil War soldiers buried there.
Facts about the origination of Memorial Day continued as recently as 1996. New details were uncovered by a professor of American History at Yale University, as he rummaged through boxes of unsorted material from Union veterans. The Washington Race Course and Jockey Club in Charleston, South Carolina had become a makeshift prison for Union captives where more than two hundred and sixty Union soldiers died while captive. They were buried in a mass grave until emancipated survivors exhumed the mass grave and the bodies were brought to a new cemetery where a fence was inscribed with the words: “Martyrs of the Race Course.”
While history may be a big snooze to many, I find it compelling when I feel a connection to the tales of the past. Hopefully next year we will be back at the beaches, and backyard barbecues but maybe with a bit more appreciation for a day of rest that was created in memory of those who serve and protect.
