From Decoration Day to Memorial Day

It was Decoration Day at first.

This was in the mid-1860s in the aftermath of the Civil War, Lincoln’s assassination and the contentious start of Reconstruction. The nation fairly reeked of death; the 1861-65 conflict killed at least 620,000 in a nation of roughly 35 million, or about 2 percent of the population.

Small organizations around the country on both sides of the conflict had begun to formally mourn the dead even before the war was over. John A. Logan, a member of Congress from southern Illinois before the war and a volunteer who rose to the rank of general during the conflict, wanted to energize his comrades.

On May 5, 1868, as the national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, the dominant organization of Union veterans, he issued General Orders No. 11, naming May 30 of each year to serve as a remembrance by its members “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.”

Decoration Day, as it was dubbed, was observed at Arlington Cemetery 25 days later, with veterans, grieving families, politicians and volunteers placing thousands of flower arrangements on the slim white gravestones.

Given that few communities had escaped the war without a loss, the day quickly served as a national umbrella for the many preexisting local and regional memorial recognitions, in both the Union and the former Confederacy — though Logan clearly delineated the remembrance to honor only Union troops.

“Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms,” his order continued. “We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance.”

The Library preserves much of this history, including Logan’s papers, research guides on the G.A.R. and early photographs of celebrations, and the Library’s Congressional Research Service preserves the day’s history and legislative documents.

In 1888, Congress made May 30 a holiday in the District of Columbia, and in 1950 the House and Senate passed a joint resolution calling on the president to “issue a proclamation designating May 30, Memorial Day, as a day for a Nation-wide prayer for peace.”

President Lyndon B. Johnson finally did so in 1968, setting the recognition to begin in 1971 and adjusting the date to be the last Monday in May.

Logan, though not widely remembered today, was a prominent figure in the late 19th century.

He was a highly decorated officer and was wounded in the war. His Illinois constituency sent him to Washington as a member of the House of Representatives and elected him three times to the U.S. Senate. He narrowly missed being elected vice president on the Republican ticket in 1884, when he and presidential nominee James G. Blaine narrowly lost to the Democratic ticket of Grover Cleveland and Thomas A. Hendricks.

Logan died of an illness two years later, at 60, while planning a run for the presidency.

His birthplace in southern Illinois is now a museum; he’s memorialized in the nation’s capital, with Logan Circle in downtown D.C., in the center of which is a statue of Logan astride a horse; and he’s buried across town in a prominent mausoleum in the United States Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home National Cemetery.

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