Memorial Day

Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial start of summer, three days that give us a chance to eat BBQ. But more importantly, it gives us a chance to pause and reflect on the ultimate sacrifice that more than 1.1 million of our men and women in the armed forces have made on our behalf. They died for our continued freedom and liberty.

The practice of honoring our war victims started after the Civil War, when family members fought against one another, as did neighbors and friends. More than 700 million people died during the conflict. The nation was in mourning and the healing was hard. Decoration Day, a time to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers on both sides, provided survivors with an opportunity to remember and heal. After World War I, this act of remembrance was extended to include all soldiers who had died in all American wars.

All those who serve in the military know that they might have to give their lives for our country. While memorials, flags at half-staff, parades and ceremonies serve as a visual annual reminder of their service, we should remember and honor the purpose of their sacrifice, to protect and defend our freedom, throughout the year.

While not all of us are called to serve our country in the armed forces or in the political arena, we can all make a difference through the way we live our lives. With freedom comes responsibility -- responsibility to ensure that our freedom is maintained. Freedom is never free, but comes at a cost of lives, of time, of effort and of responsibility.

The Declaration of Independence provides the foundation for our country. That we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We have life and liberty and must guard them both, but we are provided only with the opportunity to pursue happiness, not a guarantee of happiness itself. Whether you achieve happiness is up to you, and not the responsibility of our government.

President Abraham Lincoln reminded us of our responsibility when he delivered his address at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pa., in November 1863. The Civil War was still raging. He was not the main speaker for the day, but had been invited as an afterthought. His speech was so short (less than two minutes) that the photographer did not have time to get a picture of him delivering it.

Its 278 words don't include "I" or "me," but they do take the audience from our start as a nation and the American Revolution to Lincoln's wishes for the future of our nation.

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. ... It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

This Memorial Day, spend a minute in silence at 3 PM, along with millions of others, remembering the military men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our safety and freedom. After Memorial Day is over and you go back to work, to errands, to taking care of children, dedicate yourself to making their sacrifice of life worthwhile. Take an interest and get involved in what it means to be an American. Help others understand the importance being an American and living out the American dream. Educate your children of those who have died so that they could remain free, and reach out to veterans who were able to return home.

Let's give thanks, and increase our devotion to our country, so that our military men and women will not have died in vain.

http://www.memorialdayorigin.info/logan.html

Memorial Day Origin

Mrs. Logan Inspired by Memorial Observances in Petersburg

General Order Number 11

During the Month of March 1868, just three years after the end of the Civil War, Mrs. Mary Simmerson Cunningham Logan, wife of General John A. Logan, Commander in Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic — the Union Army Veterans Organization — went to Petersburg. She recounted her visit in her article published in the Los Angeles Daily Times dated May 30, 1903, titled MEMORIAL DAY: A NOTED WOMAN’S STORY OF ITS ORIGIN AND GROWTH. According to Mrs. Logan:

“...it is especially pleasant to know that the ideal of Memorial Day was unwittingly suggested by the devotion of the people of the South to their heroes. In the early spring of 1868 I was one of a party ... to make a pilgrimage to the battlefields of Virginia. Gen. Logan had long been anxious to make a personal inspection of this section of the country over which the great conflict raged in order to enlarge his knowledge of the entire course of the war .... Unfortunately, however, circumstances prevented him accompanying me and he did not see with his own eyes what really prompted the first Decoration Day. It is my pleasure to revert to it and to pay a just tribute to the gentle people whose acts gave me the inspiration that resulted in the Decoration Day of today.” Mrs. Logan talks about the difficulties of getting a guide and transportation, then:

“But it is not of this that I would speak, but of the incident that gave me the inspiration that resulted in Decoration Day. We were in Petersburg, Virginia, and had taken advantage of the fact to inspect the oldest church there, the bricks of which had been brought from England. There was an old English air all about the venerable structure, and we passed to the building through a churchyard. The weather was balmy and spring-like, and as we passed through the rows of graves I noticed that many of them had been strewn with beautiful blossoms and decorated with small flags of the dead Confederacy.

The sentimental idea so enwrapped me that I inspected them more closely and discovered that they were every one the graves of soldiers who had died for the Southern cause. The actions seemed to me to be a beautiful tribute to the soldier martyrs and grew upon me while I was returning to Washington. Gen. Logan was at that time the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, with his headquarters in Washington, and as soon as he met me at the station I told him of the graves of the Southern soldiers in the cemetery at Petersburg. He listened with great interest and then said: ‘What a splendid thought! We will have it done all over the country, and the Grand Army shall do it! I will issue the order at once for a national Memorial Day for the decoration of the graves of all those noble fellows who died for their country.’

... He immediately entered into a conference with his several aides with a view of selecting a date that should be kept from year to year. He realized that it must be a time when the whole country was blooming with flowers, and May 30th was finally selected as the best season for the annual observance of the day.” Following this discussion, Mrs. Logan goes on to quote essential parts of Grand Army of the Republic General Order No. 11 which was issued on May 5, 1868, designating May 30th “... for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of the comrades who died in defense of their country in the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land.” Mrs. Logan adds a postscript:

“Time has shown how well that order has been obeyed, and although the observance of the day has grown as the years have glided into the past and every city and hamlet in the country assists in the noble work, the eyes of the nation are every year centered upon the great national cemetery on the Heights of Arlington where, lying under the emerald lawns and shaded by the great trees, are the bodies in whose honor the day was inaugurated.

Nearby the graves of the men who wore the blue are hundreds of mounds that cover all that was mortal of those who wore the gray, and it is one of the most beautiful traits of forgiving humanity that none of them are overlooked on the most sacred day in the American calendar. In Dixie they garland with one hand the mounds above the ashes of the northern soldiers while with the other they strew beautiful blosoms on the graves of their own heroes. We of the north do the same, for they were all heroes, each dying for the cause he thought was right. They gave their all to prove their sincerity, and they all died true Americans whatever their political affiliations may have been....”

The result of extensive research in the Logan Family Papers in the Library of Congress lets us draw several conclusions about Mrs. Logan, especially her connection with the establishment of Memorial Day. In Mrs. Logan’s papers, there are numerous references to Memorial Day. A copy of one of her speeches, in 1903, describes in detail her visit to Petersburg and her description of the decorated graves in Blandford Cemetery there. One should note that there are several species of flowering plants in full bloom in Petersburg in March making blossoms readily available for decorating graves. The article Mrs. Logan wrote for the Los Angeles Daily Times, quoted above, tells the full story of her visit to Blandford Cemetery in March 1868, how she saw the decorated graves in the cemetery, her telling General Logan of what she had seen, his response that he would see that the same was done for the Union dead, and his promulgating of General Order 11 which created the National Memorial Day. The Logan files show that the terms Memorial Day and Decoration Day were used interchangeably from the earliest observances. The Petersburg connection with the National Memorial Day is clear, historical, and convincing.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.