Memorial Day: A Time to Honor & Remember our Heroes

We all pretty much heard of this day. Basically we remember our heroes for what they did, which was protecting our country. Now, did we really know everything that happened back then? In this blog we’ll go over it :3

Memorial Day, was also known as “Decoration Day” (Isn’t it ironic?). In May 1966, President Lyndon Johnson officially declared Waterloo N.Y. as the birthplace of Memorial Day. However, many towns and cities claimed to be the birthplace so it’s difficult to prove the origins. One thing is crystal clear though; Memorial Day was born out of the Civil War, which ended in 1865.

The main purpose was a desire to honor the dead, so on May 5th 1868, General John Logan [National commander of the Grand Army of the republic], officially proclaimed it in his General Order Nº 11. “The 30th 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 churchyard in the land.” – This is why it was originally called Decoration Day.

On the first Decoration Day, around 5.000 participants decorated the graves of 20.000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried at the Arlington Cementery meanwhile General James Garfield made a historic speech.

Did you also know that the state of New York was the first to officially recognize the holiday in 1873? It was later recognized by all northern states in 1890. However, the south refused to acknowledge the day and honored their dead on separate days. This went on until after World War I when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war. – From here, this holiday was renamed to Memorial Day and it was recognized by almost every state with the Congressional passage of the National Holiday Act of 1971 [P.L. 90 – 363].

This helped ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays. In addition, several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19th in Texas; April 26th in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10th in South Carolina; and June 3rd in Louisiana and Tennessee.

The meaning of Memorial day and history was completed with the “National Moment of Remembrance” which was a resolution passed on Dec 2000. It asks all Americans at 3 p.m. local time to voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to “Taps”.