It is All About the Fallen Whether It is Decoration Day or Memorial Day

  

The first wide-spread Decoration Day was observed in Northern states and at Union cemeteries in the former Confederacy by order of General John A. Logan, Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic in 1868. 

Note—This is a regular Memorial Day history post.  It’s good to be reminded.

Monday, May 25 is officially Memorial Day in the United States.  The Uniform Holiday Act, passed in 1968, set 1971 as the year the Federal government would begin observing the holiday on the last Monday of May giving Americans a three-day holiday weekend to start the Summer season, to be balanced by a three-day Labor Day weekend in September.   Next Sunday, May 31 would have been the traditional last-day-of-May celebration

Veteran’s groups were nearly unanimous in opposition to the move fearing that it would dilute the observance as families planned fun activities instead of solemnly commemorating the war dead.  Several states refused at first to change their observances in conformity with the Federal law creating two Memorial Day holidays.   That proved unworkable and eventually all fell in line. 

Of course, the veteran groups were right.  Attendance at their parades and cemetery services dropped off in favor of barbeques or a day at the beach.  Every year attempts are made to restore the traditional date. 

The origins of that celebration go back to the end of the Civil War.   Almost as soon as the firing stopped communities were gathering to honor their dead, which in the sentimental 19th Century naturally meant trekking out to local cemeteries to festoon the graves with flowers.  Some credit the first organized commemoration to Confederate widows.  

Former slaves mass to salute the Stars and Stripes at the dedication of the cemetery they built for the Union soldiers who died in a Confederate prisoner of war camp on May 1, 1865.

Others claim that former slaves in Charleston, South Carolina originated it when they reburied Union soldiers who died in a Confederate prisoner of war camp there and dedicated the cemetery they created as a Union graveyard.  A local paper said that up to 10,000 people, mostly former slaves, were present for a dedication of the graveyard on May 1, 1865 marking the occasion with singing and prayers. 

Local observances sprang up in towns and cities both North and South.  Waterloo, New York lays claim to the first Decoration Day, as it became known with an observance on May 5, 1865.  It was surely not the first, and just one of many.  But the friendship of the local leader of the celebration, General John Murray with General John A. Logan, the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R) planted the idea of creating a national observance.   

 General John A. Logan, Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic is heroically remembered in this hill top Grant Park monument in Chicago.

On May 5, 1868 Logan issued G.A.R. General Order No. 11 instructing local posts to participate: 

     The 30th day 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 church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

We are organized, comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose among other things, of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers, sailors, and marines who united to suppress the late rebellion." What can aid more to assure this result than cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead, who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes? Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.

If other eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.

Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges 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.

It is the purpose of the Commander-in-Chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept up from year to year, while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades. He earnestly desires the public press to lend its friendly aid in bringing to the notice of comrades in all parts of the country in time for simultaneous compliance therewith…

To this day, Logan’s order is often read at Memorial Day observances conducted by the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and other veteran organizations. 

Confederate Memorial Day ceremony at Woodington Universalist Church in Lenoir County, North Carolina 1920.

Decoration Day was soon observed across the North, and at Union cemeteries in the South.  For many years it was confined to the Yankee dead and was thus boycotted by Southern states, most of which designated their own separate memorial days for the Confederate Dead.  It was not until after the Spanish American War in 1898 in which Southerners served in arms under the Stars and Stripes once again, that the notion began to spread of honoring all the war dead—although this was fought tooth and nail by the GAR.  The South began to share the May 30th date but tended to call their observances Memorial Days to differentiate them from the GAR’s Decoration Days. 

After World War I it became common to include the dead of that war—and later all wars—in the commemorations and the use of the term Memorial Day became more common even in the North.  But it was not Until 1967 the Congress officially changed the name.  

Moina Belle Michael started the tradition of selling poppies to support war refugees even before the entrance of the United States into World War I.  Later adopted by veteran groups not only from the US but the United Kingdom, Canada, and other Commonwealth countries.

In 1915 Georgian Moina Belle Michael, inspired by the poem In Flanders Fields by John McCrae conceived of the idea of making and selling paper flowers for the support of maimed soldiers.  When the U.S. entered the war in 1917 she began selling her poppies on Decoration Day to honor the dead of all wars.  She later donated proceeds to French and Belgian war orphans.  The poppy tradition spread to other Allied countries.  After the relief organization she had been donating to disbanded after the War, Michel approached the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who adopted Memorial Day poppy sales in 1922.  Two years later they inaugurated their annual Buddy Poppy sales.  Soon no respectable American would be seen on the streets on Memorial Day without a Poppy.  

The Color Guard at Union Cemetery in the annual Crystal Lake, Illinois Memorial Day ceremony, now mostly vets of the Gulf War and the seemingly endless conflicts since then.

These days the tradition of decorating soldier’s graves is kept alive by Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and veteran organizations who place small flags on the graves of veterans, not only at National Cemeteries, but in local graveyards as well.  Many cities and towns still hold parades, General Logan’s Order is read, prayers are uttered, politicians orate, high school bands play patriotic music, and sometimes straggling lines of elderly veterans fire volleys from rifles to salute of the flag. 

That’s the way it will be in my town, Crystal Lake, Illinois. 

An Identity Crisis for a National Holliday—Armistice or Veterans Day

  

Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, First Sea Lord, and Marshal Ferdinand Foch (standing), the French leader of the Allied forces,  accept the German surrender ending fighting in the Great War. 

Note:  A return of a semi-regular post.  But it will be new and news to some of you.

11/11/11.  That’s how Americans remembered the Armistice that went into effect on November 11, 1918 at 11 a.m. local time in France ending hostilities on the Western Front in what was up to that time the most catastrophically bloody war in history.  The German High Command signed the armistice just two days after revolutionaries in Berlin overthrew Kaiser Wilhelm and proclaimed a Republic. The shooting part of the Great War was over.  It would not officially end until the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919.

President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation declaring the day as Armistice Day, an occasion for national Thanksgiving and prayer.  Americans and the world were thankful, but they were more in the mood for wild celebration that day than for sober reflection and prayer.  From the great cities of Europe to the simplest of rural American villages spontaneous celebrations erupted in the streets.

  

These Doughboys may never have made it to the Front, but had plenty to celebrate in an impromptu New York City parade celebrating the Armistice on November 11, 1918. 

By the time of the first anniversary most Allied nations had officially adopted November 11 as a holiday.  In Britain, Canada, and other Commonwealth Countries it is called Remembrance Day or Poppy Day for the red paper flowers almost universally worn then. In the United States, where holiday proclamations were traditionally left to the states, only a handful had yet designated a formal holiday.  But with troops only recently come home, cities and towns across the country marked the day with parades and speeches.

  

Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. issued the call for the Paris Caucus where Officers and enlisted men still in France in May 1919 laid the groundwork for the establishment of the American Legion.

The spread of the day as an official holiday was promoted by veterans’ organizations.  One such organization was envisioned by Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. as a group analogous to the Grand Army of the Republic, the organization of Civil War Veterans which dominated American public life for more than 50 years.  Within days of the Armistice Roosevelt gathered officers in Paris to plan for the organization.  In March 1919 the Paris Caucus of over 1000 officers and enlisted men adopted a temporary constitution and the name American Legion.  Congress granted the Legion a charter in September and a founding convention was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota over three days that coincided with the 1919 Armistice celebrations.

Unlike the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), an existing organization of Spanish Civil War, Philippine Insurrection, Boxer Rebellion, and Mexican Expeditionary veterans which began accepting Great War veterans into their existing network of Posts, the American Legion had a distinct ideological tone.  From the beginning, its leadership was in ultra-conservative hands, and some were eager to mobilize the ranks in campaigns against the perceived Red Menace of the post war period.  Legion officers often encouraged their members to act as organized strike breakers.

On that same Armistice Day in 1919, an American Legion parade in Centralia, Washington, the heart of lumber country and long running labor strife, broke ranks on a pre-arranged signal and attacked the local hall of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). 

 

The American  Legion  in Centralia, Washington parading on Armistice Day 1919 moments before they  broke ranks to attack the IWW Hall. 

Wobblies in the hall opened fire in self defense as the Legionaries tried to charge up the stairs.  Four Legionaries were killed in the attack and several others were wounded inside the hall in a confusing melee before most of the union men were disarmed.  Wesley Everest, himself a veteran and in uniform, escaped although wounded and was chased down to the river where he shot two or more of his pursuers before being overwhelmed.   

That night a mob of Legionaries, with the complicity of authorities, seized the wounded Everest from his jail cell, dragged him behind an automobile, castrated him, and hung him from a railroad bridge.  Several IWW members including those captured in the hall and others tracked down by possies in a massive man hunt were put on trial.  Eight Wobblies were convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to long prison terms.  No Legionnaires were charged in the initial assault.

 

President Warren G. Harding, standing left at the entombment of the Unknown Soldier on Armistice Day 1921.  He also proclaimed a one-time Federal Holiday for the occasion. 

When the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was dedicated on Armistice Day 1921, a onetime Federal Holiday was declared.  In 1926 a Congressional Resolution proclaimed the “recurring anniversary of should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations” and that the President should issue an annual proclamation calling for the observance of Armistice Day.  It still fell short of the declaration of a Federal holiday.  At the time 27 states had official observances.  Spread of the holiday, although popular with the public, was strongly opposed by business interests.

Although the rival veterans’ organizations both campaigned for the establishment of Armistice Day as an official Holliday and supported wounded veterans, their emphasis, and political agenda, was clearly different.  The VFW was more interested in obtaining benefits and support for veterans while the Legion promoted respect for the military and patriotism.  The VFW spearheaded the campaigns that resulted in the first Veteran medical benefits, vocational training for wounded veterans, the establishment of the Veteran’s Bureau, and an act of Congress to pay Great War veterans a Bonus in 1942. 

When the Depression hit veterans especially hard, the VFW endorsed efforts to get Congress to authorize an early payment of the promised Bonus.  Although not officially supporters of the Bonus March on Washington in 1932, they were outraged when troops under General Douglas MacArthur violently dispersed the demonstrators and destroyed their camp.  The Legion, on the other hand, supported the Army and painted the Bonus Marchers as Communists.

 

Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, twice a Medal of Honor winner, was recruited by business leaders and high American Legion officials to be the "Man on a White Horse" to front a coup d'etat overthrowing Franklin Roosevelt in 1933.  Instead, he exposed the plot to Congress. 

In the early days of the Franklin Roosevelt administration some Legion leaders were involved in the aborted plot to stage a military coup against the President and replace him with a military Man on a White Horse.  They planned to use legion members as Italian Fascists and German Nazis had used their Black and Brown Shirts, largely drawn from the ranks of their own veterans.  The plot was exposed when an officer who was offered the titular role military savior, Marine Corps General Smedley Butler publicly exposed the cabal.  The plot was averted but its leaders were so powerful that none were ever charged or tried for treason.  

Finally, the issue was settled when on June 4, 1954 with a whole new crop of veterans from the Korean War already coming home, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Act of Congress that transformed Armistice Day into Veterans Day.

 

After signing legislation creating the official new Federal Veteran's Day holiday, President Dwight D. Eisenhower posed with leaders of the American Legion, left, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, right. Representative Edwin Rees of Kansas, the sponsor of  the legislation is to the immediate left of Ike. 

Traditionalists still grumbled.  But they were really given something to complain about in 1968 when Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill, which sought to ensure three-day weekends for Federal employees and to encourage tourism and travel by celebrating four national holidays, Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Columbus Day on Mondays.  Federal Veterans Day was moved to the last Monday in October.  When the first observance under the new scheme was held on October 21, 1971 the public was outraged and most states refused to go along, maintaining November 11 as state holidays.  In many states that meant two observances—and competing claims for paid holidays by workers in private industry covered by labor contracts.  Businesses hated that. 

Bowing to public pressure, President Gerald Ford signed a new law returning the observation of Veterans Day to November 11 beginning in 1978. If November 11 falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the Federal government observes the holiday on the previous Friday or following Monday.

In recent years mid-week observance of Veterans Day has lowered its public profile.  Fewer and fewer cities and towns held Veterans Day parades.  Participation in local commemorations faded as first the World War I veterans passed and then the ranks of World War II and Korean Veterans shrank.  Veterans of the unpopular Vietnam War often felt unwelcome in Legion and VFW posts and were stigmatized by the public as troubled and possibly dangerous.

Veterans organizations became outraged as a wide-spread movement to keep kids in school resulted in Veterans Day being dropped as a school holiday in many places.  Ironically, with schools in session and many state legislatures mandating veteran curricula on that day, the holiday may have gotten a boost in interest among students who previously would have just enjoyed a day away from studies.

Traditionalists still grumbled.  But they were really given something to complain about in 1968 when Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill, which sought to ensure three-day weekends for Federal employees and to encourage tourism and travel by celebrating four national holidays, Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Columbus Day on Mondays.  Federal Veterans Day was moved to the last Monday in October.  When the first observance under the new scheme was held on October 21, 1971 the public was outraged and most states refused to go along, maintaining November 11 as state holidays.  In many states that meant two observances—and competing claims for paid holidays by workers in private industry covered by labor contracts.  Businesses hated that. 

 

Younger Vets have replaced aging World War II, Korean, and Vietnam vets in parades like this pre-pandemic one in New York City.   

The long, lingering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan produced new rounds of veterans, many of them National Guardsmen and Reservists, older soldiers with deep roots in their home communities.  They are giving the day new meaning.

 

Donald Trump finally got his cherished military parade in Washington not on Veterans Day, but on his own birthday.  Crowds were sparse and dwarfed by nation-wide No Kings protests nation wide.  

Unfortunately, that determination was ignored by Donald Trump who famously yearned to stage an epic military parade including tanks and missiles to roll by a reviewing stand like observances in France—and Russia.  That wild dream was hosed down by the almost unanimous opposition of military leaders, technical difficulties, and the enormous expense.  In his second Term Trump finally got his parade not on Veterans Day but conveniently on his birthday.  It turned out to be a spectacular and embarrassing failure.

 

Call It Decoration Day or Memorial Day it is All About the Fallen

  

The  first wide spread Decoration Day was observed in Northern states and at Union cemeteries in the former Confederacy by order of General John A. Logan, Commander of the the Grand Army of the Republic in 1868. 

Note—This is a regular Memorial Day history post.  It’s good to be reminded.

Today is official Memorial Day in the United States.  The Uniform Holiday Act, passed in 1968, set 1971 as the year the Federal government would begin observing the holiday on the last Monday of May giving Americans a three day holiday weekend to start the Summer season, to be balanced by a three day Labor Day weekend in September.   Saturday, May 31 would be the traditional last-day-of-May celebration

Veteran’s groups were nearly unanimous in opposition to the move fearing that it would dilute the observance as families planned fun activities instead of solemnly commemorating the war dead.  Several states refused at first to change their observances in conformity with the Federal law creating two Memorial Day holidays.   That proved unworkable and eventually all fell in line. 

Of course, the veterans groups were right.  Attendance at their parades and cemetery services dropped off in favor of barbeques or a day at the beach.  Every year attempts are made to restore the traditional date. 

The origins of that celebration go back to the end of the Civil War.   Almost as soon as the firing stopped communities were gathering to honor their dead, which in the sentimental 19th Century naturally meant trekking out to local cemeteries to festoon the graves with flowers.  Some credit the first organized commemoration to Confederate widows.  

Former slaves mass to salute the Stars and Stripes at the dedication of the cemetery they built for the Union soldiers who died in a Confederate prisoner of war camp on May 1, 1865.

Others claim that former slaves in Charleston, South Carolina originated it when they reburied Union soldiers who died in a Confederate prisoner of war camp there and dedicated the cemetery they created as a Union graveyard.  A local paper said that up to 10,000 people, mostly former slaves, were present for a dedication of the graveyard on May 1, 1865 marking the occasion with singing and prayers. 

Local observances sprang up in towns and cities both North and South.  Waterloo, New York lays claim to the first Decoration Day, as it became known with an observance on May 5, 1865.  It was surely not the first, and just one of many.  But the friendship of the local leader of the celebration, General John Murray with General John A. Logan, the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R) planted the idea of creating a national observance.   

 General John A. Logan, Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic is heroically remembered in this hill top Grant Park monument in Chicago.

On May 5, 1868 Logan issued G.A.R. General Order No. 11 instructing local posts to participate: 

     The 30th day 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 church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

We are organized, comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose among other things, of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers, sailors, and marines who united to suppress the late rebellion." What can aid more to assure this result than cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead, who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes? Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.

If other eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.

Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges 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.

It is the purpose of the Commander-in-Chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept up from year to year, while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades. He earnestly desires the public press to lend its friendly aid in bringing to the notice of comrades in all parts of the country in time for simultaneous compliance therewith…

To this day, Logan’s order is often read at Memorial Day observances conducted by the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and other veterans organizations. 

Confederate Memorial Day ceremony at Woodington Universalist Church in Lenoir County, North Carolina 1920.

Decoration Day was soon observed across the North, and at Union cemeteries in the South.  For many years it was confined to the Yankee dead and was thus boycotted by Southern states, most of which designated their own separate memorial days for the Confederate Dead.  It was not until after the Spanish American War in 1898 in which Southerners served in arms under the Stars and Stripes once again, that the notion began to spread of honoring all the war dead—although this was fought tooth and nail by the GAR.  The South began to share the May 30th date but tended to call their observances Memorial Days to differentiate them from the GAR’s Decoration Days. 

After World War I it became common to include the dead of that war—and later all wars—in the commemorations and the use of the term Memorial Day became more common even in the North.  But it was not Until 1967 the Congress officially changed the name.  

 Moina Belle Michael started the tradition of selling poppies to support war refugees even before the entrance of the United States into World War I.  Later adopted by veterans groups not only from the US but the United Kingdom, Canada, and other Commonwealth countries.

In 1915 Georgian Moina Belle Michael, inspired by the poem In Flanders Fields by John McCrae conceived of the idea of making and selling paper flowers for the support of maimed soldiers.  When the U.S. entered the war in 1917 she began selling her poppies on Decoration Day to honor the dead of all wars.  She later donated proceeds to French and Belgian war orphans.  The poppy tradition spread to other Allied countries.  After the relief organization she had been donating to disbanded after the War, Michel approached the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who adopted Memorial Day poppy sales in 1922.  Two years later they inaugurated their annual Buddy Poppy sales.  Soon no respectable American would be seen on the streets on Memorial Day without a Poppy.  

The Color Guard at Union Cemetery in the annual Crystal Lake, Illinois Memorial Day ceremony, now mostly vets of the Gulf War and the seemingly endless conflicts since then.

These days the tradition of decorating soldier’s graves is kept alive by Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and veteran’s organizations who place small flags on the graves of veterans, not only at National Cemeteries, but in local graveyards as well.  Many cities and towns still hold parades, General Logan’s Order is read, prayers are uttered, politicians orate, high school bands play patriotic music, and sometimes straggling lines of elderly veterans fire volleys from rifles to salute of the flag. 

That’s the way it will be in my town, Crystal Lake, Illinois.