Yesterday was Memorial Day and we proudly posted our Flag throughout our Community. As I reflect about the meaning of Memorial Day, I decided to share a few items from Barbara Maranzani’s article “8 Things You May Not Know About Memorial Day” (link below).
Ancient Roots
The practice of honoring those who have fallen in battle dates back thousands of years. One of the first known public tributes to war dead was in 431 B.C., when the Athenian general and statesman Pericles delivered a funeral oration praising the sacrifice and valor of those killed in the Peloponnesian War—a speech that some have compared in tone to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
Early Commemoration
On May 1 1865 in Charleston, South Carolina, three weeks after the Confederate surrender, more than 1,000 people recently freed from enslavement, accompanied by regiments of the U.S. Colored Troops (including the Massachusetts 54th Infantry) and a handful of white Charlestonians, gathered in the camp to consecrate a new, proper burial site for the Union dead. The group sang hymns, gave readings and distributed flowers around the cemetery, which they dedicated to the “Martyrs of the Race Course.”
Decoration Day
In May 1868, General John A. Logan issued a decree that May 30 should become a nationwide Decoration Day to honor the more than 620,000 soldiers killed in the recently ended Civil War. Americans should lay flowers and decorate the graves of the war dead “whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land.” According to legend, Logan chose May 30 because it was a rare day that didn’t fall on the anniversary of a Civil War battle.