A Look at Memorial Day
Memorial Day is a day set aside to honor those who have served our country with pride and dignity and for those whose sacrifices provided us with the freedoms we enjoy today. Memorial Day (at first called Decoration Day) is always commemorated on the last Monday in May. It is an important day for all citizens to be grateful for the legacy that many brave men and women have left behind.
As to why Memorial Day came to be celebrated on the last Monday of May- on May 5, 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War, Decoration Day was established by the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) in order for the war dead to have their graves decorated with flowers in remembrance of their sacrifices for their country. It was Major General John A. Logan who chose the last Monday in May to be Decoration Day because flowers were in bloom all over the nation and therefore easily accessible to place on graves.
The very first Memorial Day was celebrated on May 30, 1868. On that day, flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers. A speech was made at Arlington Cemetery by General James Garfield. Once the speech was finished, 5,000 people decorated the more than 20,000 graves of soldiers buried there.
The south would not honor those who died in the war on the designated holiday until the end of World War I. At this time, the meaning of Memorial Day shifted- it became a day not to honor those who died in the Civil War only but Americans who lost their lives in any war.
The very first state to recognize the newly named Memorial Day was New York and that was thanks to President Lyndon Johnson. On Memorial Day across the country flags remain at half-staff all morning until noon time. They are then raised to the top.
The Memorial Day flower is the red poppy. The custom of wearing red poppies on Memorial Day was first started in 1915 by Moina Michaels who felt it was a fitting way to honor the war dead.
Memorial Day Quotes
“For love of country they accepted death …” -James A. Garfield
“We come, not to mourn our dead soldiers, but to praise them.”-Francis A. Walker
