Memorial Day

June 28, 1968: Congress enacted the Uniform Holiday Act, making Memorial Day the last Monday in May.

But before that…

May 30, 1868: The first official Memorial Day service was conducted at Arlington Cemetery, honoring fallen soldiers of the Civil War, then called Decoration Day for the practice of decorating the graves with spring flowers.

But before that….

May 5,1866: Waterloo, NY held the first city-wide day of observance of the fallen soldiers from the Civil War with half-mast flags draped in evergreen and mourning black.

But before that….

May 1, 1865: In Charleston, SC 10,000 former slaves, Union infantry and other townspeople honored the fallen Union Soldiers who had died in a makeshift prisoner-of-war camp with a procession and a solemn service. Led by 3,000 children singing “John Brown’s Body” and carrying roses the procession and following ceremony included a children’s choir singing “The Star Spangled Banner”, ministers reading scripture and everyone singing spirituals.

A little background: Near the end of the War, The Washington Race Course and Jockey Club had been turned into a makeshift outdoor prison where 257 Union soldiers died in squalor and were buried in a mass grave behind the bandstand. Days after the end of the War, 28 former slaves dug up the bodies and properly buried them, They whitewashed the fence and added an archway with the inscription “Martyrs of the Race Course”. So, it was at this site, not far from where the Civil War began, that the first Memorial Day service actually took place.

In the way that truth is stranger than fiction. The location where all this took place is now part of Hampton Park, named after General Wade Hampton III (Confederate Lieutenant General, Governor and U.S. Senator) who, when the War began, owned more land (plantations in South Carolina and Mississippi) and more enslaved people than almost anyone in the South.

To date 1,304,702 souls have perished while fighting for our Country.