Greetings,
This day was originally set aside to remember the
Civil War dead by decorating their graves with flowers and/or flags; hence the
two names Decoration Day and Memorial Day. Although Boalsburg, Pennsylvania claims to have had a Memorial Day in 1864, Waterloo, New York, is usually credited with having the first true
Memorial Day observance, on May 5, 1866, which included flying the village flags at half-staff, a veteran’s
parade, and a march to the village cemeteries where speeches were made.
At the same time, 1866 - 1867, the women of Columbus, Mississippi were showing themselves impartial in their offering
made to the memory of the dead from both sides of the War, placing flowers on
the graves of Northern dead as well as Confederate dead. This act of love for the “enemy” was reported
in northern newspapers in 1867 and is credited by many as the impetus for the
spread of the idea of Decoration Day.
In 1868, the commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of
the Republic, General John A. Logan, sent an order to all posts of the G.A.R.
that May 30th, 1868, be observed as Decoration Day “for the purpose
of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of the Comrades who
died in defense of their country during the late rebellion and whose bodies lie
in almost every city, village or hamlet church-yard in the landlet us raise
above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn
presence renew our pledge to aid and assist those whom they have left among us
a sacred charge upon a nation’s gratitude, the soldier’s and sailor’s widow and
orphan.”
The date of May 30th was probably chosen
as the approximate anniversary of the surrender of the last Confederate Army,
under General Kirby Smith, on May 26, 1865, and since May 30th was
the date of discharge of the last of the Union army volunteers. The G.A.R. was a veteran’s organization
formed by the Union Army veterans in 1866, primarily to get Congress to provide
veteran’s pensions and aid to soldier’s widows and orphans. After World War I, the American Legion was
formed in 1919, and it took over the observance. The day became known as Poppy Day, as these
flowers bloomed profusely in French battlefield graveyards. The first “poppy sale” to aid war veterans
was held in 1922 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The sale is now a function of the American
Legion.
Thoughts for Memorial Day
The eternal God is you dwelling place, and underneath
are the everlasting arms.
Deuterononmy
33:27a
We, the people of the United States, in order to form
a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide
for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America.
Preamble to the Constitution [The
Constitutional Convention was convened on May 25, 1787.]
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought
forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to
the proposition that all men are created equalWe have come to dedicatea final
resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might
liveWe cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled
here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detractit is
rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before
us—thatwe here resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this
nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of
the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham
Lincoln Address
at Gettysburg
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with
firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to
finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who
shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which
may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all
nations.
Abraham Lincoln Second Inaugural Address
The true meaning of
Memorial Day becomes at times, distant or vague, lost to
commercialism, or drowned
in forgetful indulgence. Sometimes,
there is a failure
to recognize the magnitude
of the deeds of the men and women who held true to
the notion that evil and
tyranny must not prevail. It is our
sacred duty to keep the legacy of our nation’s patriots forever fresh in the
memories of future generations. We are
bound by honor to do so. They fought and
died to preserve this land of hopes and dreams.
Jesse Brown Secretary of Veterans Affairs, 1996
Most days it seems as though we live in the slipstream of
the present and that history belongs just where we find it, in the past. But Memorial Day is a time for remembering
that history endows the present. It seems strange, some years, to stand in
patient memory at the brink of summer, when the weather, the month, the impetus
of our calendar is urging us to get busy living before summer erodes. But that
patience is always rewarded. We connect too often with the pattern of American
history on a note that is shallow and unreflective. Today we acknowledge the
depth of this nation's history, how rich and sustaining its best moments have
been. Above all, we recall the lives that have been given willingly to make our
history what it is.
The
New York Times, Editorial, May 26, 2003
Yours & His,
DED
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