I'm always curious about why things are they way they are.
From Wikipedia:
Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday that honors soldiers and is observed on the last Monday of May. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. soldiers who died while in the military service. First enacted to honor Union and Confederate soldiers following the American Civil War, it was extended after World War I to honor Americans who have died in all wars.
At church today, one of our civil war history buffs gave a little talk at coffee hour about Memorial Day, about about General Frederick Partridge, a union general in the Civil War who was a member of our parish, and served on the Vestry. Henry even dressed up in his Civil War Union General's uniform.
ReplyDeleteHe said that Decoration day began when a Union general (who was the leader of the Union veterans' association The Grand Army of the Republic) visited the South. He found that the graves of the Civil War dead in the South were carefully tended and richly decked with flowers, while in the North, the graves of the war dead were generally grown over with weeds and grass. He directed the Grand Army of the Republic to go out en masse on May 30 to clean, mow, and decorate the graves of the Union.