Why Americans Celebrate Memorial Day - John 15:13

Why Americans Celebrate Memorial Day

The inspiration of Southern ladies, who by religious custom decorated the graves of their husbands, fathers, and brothers, who died in the Civil War, began the tradition we now call Memorial Day. On that day, we who are proud to be Americans unite to honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for us.

One who made such a sacrifice was Charles Williams, a veteran of the Mexican War, a Colonel in the Virginia Army, who contracted disease, died in 1862, and was buried in Columbus, Georgia. His wife and daughter visited his grave every day and scattered flowers on his grave and unmarked soldiers’ graves nearby. She thought of thousands of graves throughout the south, far from kindred and suggested setting aside one day each year to pay tribute throughout the Southern States.

In March 1868, she sent a letter to the Columbus Times and appealed:

We beg the assistance of the press and the ladies throughout the South to aid us in the effort to set apart a certain day to be observed from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, and to be handed down through time as a religious custom of the South, to wreathe the graves of our martyred dead with flowers, and we propose the 26th day of April as the day.

Mrs. Williams wrote also to the Soldiers' Aid Societies in every Southern State which reorganized as Memorial Associations and adopted her plan. The Legislature of Georgia, in 1874, set apart the 26th day of April as a legal holiday in obedience to her request.

There was no selfishness in the practice of memorializing graves of fallen soldiers. Another private ceremony was in Columbus, Mississippi on April 25, 1866, when a group of women visited a cemetery to decorate the graves of Confederate soldiers who had fallen in battle at Shiloh. Nearby were the neglected graves of Union soldiers, the enemy. Disturbed at the sight of the bare graves, the women placed flowers there, as well, supposing that perhaps northern women would do the same for their loved ones buried in the north.

However, it was the decoration of graves by a schoolteacher and her students in Petersburg, Virginia that inspired a Union official to formalize “Decoration Day.” During the Civil War, Nora Davidson, a schoolteacher, conducted fund raising projects to buy equipment and supplies for local soldiers and organized a Ladies Hospital. Later, she was a charter member of the Petersburg Ladies Memorial Association which reburied Confederate soldiers who died on the battlefield. In 1865, after the war ended, she headed efforts to decorate the graves of the soldiers who died defending Petersburg. The wife of Union General John A. Logan witnessed this decoration while visiting in the area; upon her return home, she told her husband about this moving experience. His response was to issue an order establishing the first official National Decoration Day celebrated May 30, 1868, at Arlington National Cemetery where both Confederate and Union soldiers were buried.

General Logan’s order declared: “We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance....Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and found 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.”

A civil War hymn, published in 1867, dedicated to “the ladies of the South who are decorating the graves of the Confederate dead” reflects the faithfulness of the custom:

Kneel Where Our Loves Are Sleeping
Words by G.W.R.
Music by Mrs. L. Nella Sweet

Kneel where our loves are sleeping, Dear ones days gone by,
Here we bow in holy reverence, Our bosoms heave the heartfelt sigh.
They fell like brave men, true as steel, And pour’d their blood like rain,
We feel we owe them all we have, And can but weep and kneel again.

CHORUS: Kneel where our loves are sleeping, They lost but still were good and true,Our fathers, brothers fell still fighting, We weep, ‘tis all that we can do.

Here we find our noble dead, Their spirits soar’d to him above,
Rest they now about his throne, For God is mercy, God is love.
Then let us pray that we may live, As pure and good as they have been,
That dying we may ask of him, To open the gate and let us in.

CHORUS: Kneel where our loves are sleeping, They lost but still were good and true,Our fathers, brothers fell still fighting, We weep, ‘tis all that we can do."

Although Memorial Day observances date back to the Civil War, it was not until 1966 that Congress declared a federal holiday. All 50 states recognize the federal holiday, although some southern states also recognize a Confederate Memorial Day. Later, in 1971, the Uniform Holidays Bill moved the celebration of Memorial Day from May 30 to the last Monday of May, creating a three-day weekend. Veterans of Foreign Wars, and other supporters of veterans groups, note that changing the solemnity of this day to a three day weekend, to promote travel and commerce, resulted in an apathetic observance of Memorial Day.

A campaign began in 1997 to observe The National Moment of Remembrance, a moment of silence to honor those who died to secure and protect our freedom, is one response to this criticism. A nonprofit organization, No Greater Love, which assists the families of Americans who died in service to their country or in terrorist acts, initiated this campaign and encouraged Congress to establish The National Moment of Remembrance on December 28, 2000. In this moment, all Americans unite in a spirit of respect, patriotism, and gratitude.

On this Memorial Day, remember the solemn meaning of the day. Pray for America and its defenders; remember the ultimate sacrifice made by those who secure our liberty, those who illustrate John 15:13:"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."