Memorial Day is a
United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May (May 25 in 2009). Formerly known as
Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. men and women who died while in the
military service. First enacted to honor
Union soldiers of the
American Civil War (it is celebrated near the day of reunification after the civil war), it was expanded after
World War I to include American casualties of any war or military action.
History
Following the end of the
Civil War, many communities set aside a day to mark the end of the war or as a memorial to those who had died. Some of the places creating an early memorial day include
Sharpsburg, Maryland, located near
Antietam Battlefield;
Charleston, South Carolina;
Boalsburg, Pennsylvania;
Petersburg, Virginia;
Carbondale, Illinois;
Columbus, Mississippi; many communities in Vermont; and some two dozen other cities and towns. These observances coalesced around Decoration Day, honoring the Union dead, and the several
Confederate Memorial Days.
According to Professor David Blight of the
Yale University History Department, the first memorial day was observed in 1865 by liberated slaves at the historic Washington Race Course (today the location of Hampton Park) in Charleston. The site was a former Confederate prison camp as well as a mass grave for Union soldiers who died in captivity.
The freed slaves disinterred the dead Union soldiers from the mass grave to be inhumed properly reposed with individual graves, built a fence around the graveyard with an entry arch, declaring it a Union graveyard. A daring action for freed slaves to take such in the South just shortly after the Union's victory. On May 30, 1868, the freed slaves returned to the graveyard with flowers they had picked from the countryside and decorated the individual gravesites, thereby creating the first Decoration Day. Thousands of freed blacks and Union soldiers paraded from the area, followed by much patriotic singing and a picnic.
The official birthplace of Memorial Day is
Waterloo, New York. The village was credited with being the place of origin because it observed the day on
May 5,
1866, and each year thereafter. The friendship between General John Murray, a distinguished citizen of Waterloo, and General
John A. Logan, who helped bring attention to the event nationwide, likely was a factor in the holiday's growth.
Logan had been the principal speaker in a citywide memorial observation on April 29, 1866, at a cemetery in Carbondale, Illinois, an event that likely gave him the idea to make it a national holiday. On May 5, 1868, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the
Grand Army of the Republic, a veterans' organization, Logan issued a proclamation that "Decoration Day" be observed nationwide
[4]. It was observed for the first time on May 30 of the same year; the date was chosen because it was
not the anniversary of a battle. The
tombs of fallen Union soldiers were decorated in remembrance.
Many of the states of the
U.S. South refused to celebrate Decoration Day, due to lingering hostility towards the
Union Army and also because there were relatively few veterans of the Union Army who were buried in the South. A notable exception was
Columbus, Mississippi, which on April 25, 1866 at its Decoration Day commemorated both the Union and Confederate casualties buried in its cemetery.
[5]
Troops at the
Washington, D.C. Memorial Day parade, 1942.
The alternative name of "Memorial Day" was first used in 1882. It did not become more common until after
World War II, and was not declared the official name by Federal law until 1967. On June 28, 1968, the
United States Congress passed the
Uniform Holidays Bill, which moved three holidays from their traditional dates to a specified Monday in order to create a convenient three-day weekend. The holidays included
Washington's Birthday, now celebrated as
Presidents' Day;
Veterans Day, and Memorial Day. The change moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May. The law took effect at the federal level in 1971.
After some initial confusion and unwillingness to comply, all fifty states adopted the measure within a few years. Veterans Day was eventually changed back to its traditional date. Ironically, most corporate businesses no longer close on Veterans Day, Columbus Day, or President's Day, with the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and/or New Year's Eve often substituted as more convenient "holidays" for their employees. Memorial Day endures as a holiday which most businesses observe because it marks the beginning of the "summer vacation season." This role is filled in neighboring
Canada by
Victoria Day, which occurs either on May 24 or the last Monday before that date, placing it exactly one week before Memorial Day.
Waterloo's designation as the birthplace took place just in time for the village's centennial observance. The U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate unanimously passed House Concurrent Resolution 587 on May 17 and May 19, 1966 respectively, which reads in part as follows: "Resolved that the Congress of the United States, in recognition of the patriotic tradition set in motion one hundred years ago in the Village of Waterloo, NY, does hereby officially recognize Waterloo, New York as the birthplace of Memorial Day..."
On May 26, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a Presidential Proclamation recognizing Waterloo as the Birthplace of Memorial Day.
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