The Civil War ended in the spring of 1865, claiming more lives than any other conflict in U.S. history.
Due to the amount of lives lost, the country’s first national cemeteries needed to be established. Americans from various towns and cities held springtime tributes to the many fallen soldiers, often decorating their graves with flowers, making this day be known as “Decoration Day.”
General James Garfield made a speech on the first Decoration Day, which he gave at Arlington National Cemetery. There were about 5,000 people who showed up and decorated the graves of the 20,000 Civil War soldiers buried there. Similar commemorative events became a tradition and by the year 1890 Decoration Day was an official state holiday.
However, the federal government, 101 years after the end of the civil war, declared Waterloo, New York to be the official beginning of what we now know as Memorial Day. On May 5th of 1866, the first Waterloo celebration occurred and became an annual tradition that was community-wide and businesses would close and the tradition of decorating soldiers graves with flowers also began to add flags.
Two years after this celebration Major General A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic issued the “Memorial Day Act”, renaming the commemorative day and saying “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.”
Some people began to wear a red poppy after John McCrae wrote the poem “In Flanders Field” in 1915, a tradition that some still participate in today.
“In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.”
After Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act in 1968, Memorial Day was changed to the last Monday in May, which went into effect in 1971.
Though this day was originally created to honor those who gave their life fighting in the Civil War, after World War I it evolved to commemorate all American military personnel who died in any war.
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. 1 John 15:13
Amerika Rougemont