The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1930-05-16
by ELMO SCOTT WATSON.


/: !. :. !. !. !: !: !
E@ just where and when the
M1A VmM idea Of Memorial day
HIN Mini originated. A recent his
NH torian, Lloyd Lewis, at
NNlKI tributes it to the grief
WM which swept the nation
~Hw at the death of Abraham
Lincoln. Writing in Lib
erty magazine two years ago under
the title of Memorial Day is Born"
he says:
always there will be a dispute
over where the day began, because the
day itself came from nowhere and
everywhere. The greater the num-
Der of claimants for it's birthplace,
the palmer the proof that the Repub-
lie was aching vaguely with eager
ness to speak its grief after four
years Of killing. Seven hundred thou
sand men, Blue and Gray, were dead.
"The funeral of the wars greatest
figure pointed the way.
Each little fugitive decoration of
graves across the land was a seed
springing from ground that had been
narrowed into fertility by the Lin
coin funeral spectacle. Sentiment
crystallized as that burial drama,
with its pomp and storms of flowers,
fitted into the mood Of the moment"
AS for the various claimants, there
can only be regarded the facts of
their Observances, each of which con-
tanned the germ of the idea, in their
chronological order without attempt
ing to assign any priority to any one.
On June ], 1861, Warrentown, Va,
held memorial services over the grave
of a Confederate hero, John Quincy
MARI. On May /, 1865, memorial
service was held in Charleston, S. c.,
which had been organized by James
Redpath (war correspondent and
later founder of the Redpath Lyceum
Bureau) who was then superintendent
sOf the freedmen's schools in that city.
That same year, some time in the
spring Of 1865, the women of Column
bus, Ca, had decorated the graves
of their war dead and the following
January the members of the Ladies'
Aid society there decided to perpetu-
ate the custom. They picked upon
April 20, 1866, the anniversary Of the
surrender of Gen. Joseph Johnston,
the last formal act Of the Civil war,
as the date for their Memorial day
celebration. Montgomery, Ala, OBJ
served the same day, April 26, 1865;
Fredericksburg, Va, decided upon
May 10, 1866, and Camden, Ark, dec
GRATED graves in November, 1866. Up
North at least one memorial service
was held in 1886. Gen. John j. MUIR
ray Of Waterloo, N. Y, and some of
his comrades in the Union army are
said to have decorated graves in
their home cemetery on May %, 1866.
But even though it is impossible
10 establish definitely any exact prior
fly in the matter of the origin Of this
day, 1t is possible to trace a sue
cession of events which led to the OBJ
servance Of what, perhaps, may be
characterized as the first Memorial
day" in its close resemblance to the
event as it is now celebrated. On
April, 1886, the women of Columbus,
Miss, held memorial services in the
cemetery of that town and decorated
not only the graves of the Confed-
crate war dead but also those of
some Union soldiers buried there.
The next spring there appeared in
a New York newspaper a brief para
graph which stated that "the women
of Columbus, Miss, have shown them
selves impartial in their offerings
made to the memory of the dead.
They strewed flowers alike on the
graves Of the Confederate and of the
National soldiers" Among those who
read that item was young lawyer
named Francis Miles Finch who was
living In Ithaca, N. Y. 1t inspired
him to write the following verses:
THE BLUE AND THE GRAY
BY the flow of the inland river.
Whence the fleets of iron have fed,
Where the blades of the grave-grass
CULVER,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the one, the Blue.
Under the other. the Gray.
These in the robings OF glory.
Those in the gloom of defeat
All with the battie-blood CORY,
In the dusk Of eternity meet.