Memorial Day

[Duke of Buckingham]

The gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery are decorated by U.S. flags on Memorial Day weekend.

Memorial Day is a US federal holiday wherein the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces are remembered. The holiday, which is celebrated every year on the final Monday of May, was formerly known as Decoration Day and originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the Union and Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. By the 20th century, Memorial Day had been extended to honor all Americans who have died while in the military service. It typically marks the start of the summer vacation season, while Labor Day marks its end.

Many people visit cemeteries and memorials, particularly to honor those who have died in military service. Many volunteers place an American flag on each grave in national cemeteries.

Annual Decoration Days for particular cemeteries are held on a Sunday in late spring or early summer in some rural areas of the American South, notably in the mountains. In cases involving a family graveyard where remote ancestors as well as those who were deceased more recently are buried, this may take on the character of an extended family reunion to which some people travel hundreds of miles. People gather on the designated day and put flowers on graves and renew contacts with kinfolk and others. There often is a religious service and a "dinner on the ground," the traditional term for a potluck meal in which people used to spread the dishes out on sheets or tablecloths on the grass. It is believed that this practice began before the American Civil War and thus may reflect the real origin of the "memorial day" idea.

Memorial Day is not to be confused with Veterans Day; Memorial Day is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving, while Veterans Day celebrates the service of all U.S. military


Civil War Veterans in Ortonville, Minnesota, on the Fourth of July, 1880 - also called "Decoration Day" prior to the Uniform Monday Holiday Act almost a century later.

The practice of decorating soldiers' graves with flowers is an ancient custom. Soldiers' graves were decorated in the U.S. before and during the American Civil War. A claim was made in 1906 that the first Civil War soldier's grave ever decorated was in Warrenton, Virginia, on June 3, 1861, implying the first Memorial Day occurred there. Though not for Union soldiers, there is authentic documentation that women in Savannah, Georgia, decorated Confederate soldiers' graves in 1862. In 1863, the cemetery dedication at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was a ceremony of commemoration at the graves of dead soldiers. Local historians in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, claim that ladies there decorated soldiers' graves on July 4, 1864. As a result, Boalsburg promotes itself as the birthplace of Memorial Day.

Following President Abraham Lincoln's assassination in April 1865, there were a variety of events of commemoration. The sheer number of soldiers of both sides who died in the Civil War, more than 600,000, meant that burial and memorialization took on new cultural significance. Under the leadership of women during the war, an increasingly formal practice of decorating graves had taken shape. In 1865, the federal government began creating national military cemeteries for the Union war dead.

The first widely publicized observance of a Memorial Day-type observance after the Civil War was in Charleston, South Carolina, on May 1, 1865. During the war, Union soldiers who were prisoners of war had been held at the Charleston Race Course; at least 257 Union prisoners died there and were hastily buried in unmarked graves. Together with teachers and missionaries, black residents of Charleston organized a May Day ceremony in 1865, which was covered by the New York Tribune and other national papers. The freedmen cleaned up and landscaped the burial ground, building an enclosure and an arch labeled, "Martyrs of the Race Course." Nearly ten thousand people, mostly freedmen, gathered on May 1 to commemorate the war dead. Involved were about 3,000 school children newly enrolled in freedmen's schools, mutual aid societies, Union troops, black ministers, and white northern missionaries. Most brought flowers to lay on the burial field. Today the site is used as Hampton Park. Years later, the celebration would come to be called the "First Decoration Day" in the North.

David W. Blight described the day:
"This was the first Memorial Day. African Americans invented Memorial Day in Charleston, South Carolina. What you have there is black Americans recently freed from slavery announcing to the world with their flowers, their feet, and their songs what the war had been about. What they basically were creating was the Independence Day of a Second American Revolution.”

However, Blight stated he "has no evidence" that this event in Charleston inspired the establishment of Memorial Day across the country.

On May 26, 1966, President Johnson signed a presidential proclamation naming Waterloo, New York, as the birthplace of Memorial Day. Earlier, the 89th Congress adopted House Concurrent Resolution 587, which officially recognized that the patriotic tradition of observing Memorial Day began one hundred years prior in Waterloo, New York. According to legend, in the summer of 1865 a local druggist Henry Welles, while talking to friends, suggested that it might be good to remember those soldiers who did not make it home from the Civil War. Not much came of it until he mentioned it to General John B. Murray, a Civil War hero from Waterloo, who gathered support from other surviving veterans. On May 5, 1866, they marched to the three local cemeteries and decorated the graves of fallen soldiers. It is believed that Murray, who knew General John A. Logan, told Logan about the observance and that led to Logan issuing Logan's Order in 1868 calling for a national observance.


Soldiers National Monument at the center of Gettysburg National Cemetery.

The ceremonies and Memorial Day address at Gettysburg National Park became nationally well known, starting in 1868. In July 1913, veterans of the United States and Confederate armies gathered in Gettysburg to commemorate the fifty-year anniversary of the Civil War's bloodiest and most famous battle.

The four-day "Blue-Gray Reunion" featured parades, re-enactments, and speeches from a host of dignitaries, including President Woodrow Wilson, the first Southerner elected to the White House after the War. James Heflin of Alabama gave the main address. Heflin was a noted orator; two of his best-known speeches were an endorsement of the Lincoln Memorial and his call to make Mother's Day a holiday. His choice as Memorial Day speaker was criticized, as he was opposed for his support of segregation; however, his speech was moderate in tone and stressed national unity and goodwill, gaining him praise from newspapers.

Since the cemetery dedication at Gettysburg occurred on November 19, that day (or the closest weekend) has been designated as their own local memorial day that is referred to as Remembrance Day.

Charles Ives's symphonic poem Decoration Day depicted the holiday as he experienced it in his childhood, with his father's band leading the way to the town cemetery, the playing of "Taps" on a trumpet, and a livelier march tune on the way back to the town. It is frequently played with three other Ives works based on holidays as the second movement of A New England Holidays Symphony.

There is also a 2012 film, Memorial Day, starring James Cromwell, Jonathan Bennett, and John Cromwell.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Remembering the Fallen – 18 Touching Memorial Day Photos

Men and women in the military put their lives in danger to serve their country. Many countries reserve a day of the year to honor soldiers that have sacrificed their lives in the past. In the US, this day is an official holiday called Memorial Day, which is always celebrated on the final Monday of May. If you visit war memorials or military cemeteries in the US on Memorial Day, you will probably see veterans, current soldiers, and families gathered to visit the graves of soldiers they loved.


Fallen heroes remembered on Memorial Day by DVIDSHUB


Memorial Day service at Brookwood American Cemetery and Memorial by DVIDSHUB

Often, visitors to the US and Americans themselves get Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day confused. The main difference is that Memorial Day honors those who have died while in service, while Veteran’s Day (on November 11) honors all soldiers and coincides with the same holiday in other countries, called ‘Remembrance Day’ in Commonwealth countries and ‘Armistice Day’ in countries like Belgium and France.

Whether you’re in the US for Memorial Day or Veteran’s Day, though, you can take part in the spirit of remembrance and photograph the touching scenes, formal ceremonies, and seemingly endless fields of American flags.


Memorial Day Preparation by Vjeran Pavic


A Funeral Flag, American Veteran Soldier, The Red, White, and Blue, Stars and Stripes, Patriotic, Memorial Day 2009, Cemetery by Beverly & Pack


Thanking the Veterans by Marco


Veterans Day Memorial Flags by DVIDSHUB


Image by johnny


Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial by hookbrother


In Memoriam by Brett Weinstein


Remembering the Fallen by Mike Nelson


Memorial Day Fleet by MarineCorpsNewYork


The Wall by Vince Alongi


Marines Honoring Civil War Veterans by Tyler Bolken


Normandy Cemetery by Archangel12


The Wall by Gerry Dincher


Image by Elvert Barnes


Image by Ed Shipul

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