From Decoration Day to Memorial Day: The evolution of the early holiday

By Diane Euston

   As people prepare for a three-day weekend filled with barbecues, picnics and hanging of the American flag on houses, the true history of the holiday known today as Memorial Day is clouded in controversy. Just like with so many holidays celebrated in the United States, the true origin of this patriotic day is debated. 

  No one doubts that the origin of Memorial Day began with the creation of Decoration Day after the Civil War when thousands of soldiers were buried where they fell. 620,000 men died during the Civil War- more than all other wars through the Korean conflict combined. The bodies of more soldiers that can be counted from both sides of this war were first interred, on most occasions, far away from their homes. Memorializing these makeshift graves was a problem both logistically and spiritually. 

  According to the Department of Veteran Affairs, about two dozen places across the country claim to be the origin of this holiday, but three stories stand out among the rest. 

  And the Kansas City area was like most places of the time, spending money and resources to ensure that those lost in battles in the area were memorialized for generations to come.

The North- Waterloo, NY

  From 1868 to 1970, Memorial Day was customarily celebrated on May 30. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared Waterloo, N.Y. the official birthplace of Memorial Day. The community had started taking off work May 5, 1866 to decorate the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags. Today, this declaration of the beginning of the holiday is labeled a myth. 

  Decoration Day was officially recognized as a national holiday when commander-in-chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union Civil War vets, saw fit to pay honor to those who died “in defense of their country during the late rebellion.” May 30, 1868 was the first declared Decoration Day with a celebration at Arlington National Cemetery.

  Stories of tributes graced the headlines across the country as Decoration Day became more celebrated. In 1870, it was reported that a little girl in Indiana went to a local cemetery with a friend. She began to put flowers on the grave of a Confederate soldier. Her friend quickly reminded her that this was the grave of a rebel and her father had been killed down south at Richmond’s Libby Prison. The little girl allegedly replied, “I so much hope some little girl there will strew flowers on my pa’s grave. I thought I would bring these and put them on the rebels’ graves. Maybe some of them have little girls at home, you know.”

The South- Columbus, Miss.

  During the Civil War, the town of Columbus Ms. had a population of about 6,000 people. A nearby rail line caused the town to receive many casualties of the war. At Friendship Cemetery, 2,500 Confederate soldiers after the Battle of Shiloh were said to be buried there along with a few Union casualties.

  In April 1866, four women in Columbus began decorating the graves of Confederate soldiers. They felt it important to also honor the soldiers from both sides as an homage to reconciliation and healing. In many parts of the country, this is the accepted story to the origin of Memorial Day. 

  A poem published in the Atlantic Monthly called “The Blue and the Gray” was written by a lawyer in New York when he heard the heartwarming story of the ladies in Columbus, Ms.  The New York Times in 1868 wrote, “The ladies of the South instituted this memorial day. . . they wished to annoy the Yankees; and now the Grand Army of the Republic. . . have determined to annoy them by adopting their plan of commemoration.”

The African American Contribution

  More recently, a story has emerged that questions the origin of Memorial Day. David W. Blight, a Yale University history professor, found accounts of an early celebration that involved African Americans commemorating fallen Union soldiers on May 1, 1865.

  Thousands of Blacks, some formerly enslaved, gathered at a race track known as the Washington Race Course and Jockey Club in Charleston, South Carolina. During the war, it had become an outdoor prison for Union soldiers held by the Confederacy. The conditions at this prison were deplorable, and at least 250 Union men were buried there. Without any orders to do so, a group of Black men dug these men up out of their mass grave and gave them a proper burial, including placing a fence along the cemetery.

  To commemorate this occasion, 10,000 people, including the white community, hosted a parade on May 1, 1865. Approximately 3,000 Black school children followed Black women “with baskets of flowers, wreaths, and crosses” into the new cemetery. The Union infantry was present, including “the famous 54th Massachusetts and 104th U.S. Colored Troops, who performed a special double-columned march around the gravesite.” 

  This event, spawned by African Americans, is earlier than any other recorded Decoration Day event. David W. Blight explained, “Pride and place as the first large scale ritual of Decoration Day goes to African Americans in Charleston.”

The Lack of Memorial Day Observance in Kansas City: The 1870s

  This area joined the national movement to honor the fallen soldiers of the Civil War with the rest of the country, but the early celebrations were limited. The Liberty Tribune reported after Memorial Day in 1870, “Decoration Day has been generally observed throughout the north and south- the graves of the Union and Confederate dead being decorated with flowers.”

  Truly, the early memorials on Decoration Day were focused on Union soldiers. The Kansas City Journal reported in 1870 that people were paying tribute to the memory of those”who died so that the nation might live.”

  Kansas City didn’t rush to celebrate Memorial Day like larger cities, and this could be due to the fact that this place was a hotbed of controversy during the war. Celebrations were small with posts of the Grand Army of the Republic taking the time for “decoration of the graves of their fallen comrades with flowers.” 

  Larger celebrations could be found in places such as Lawrence, Kan. where Union veterans from Kansas City took the train to attend services on May 30, 1873. About 4,000 people were present to witness a mile-long procession down Massachusetts Street and into Oak Hill Cemetery. There, “small flags marked the resting places of those who fell during the war,  and the impressive ceremony of decorating the graves was performed in silence.” 

  About 400 Kansas Citians took the trip to Lawrence to listen to former Union commanders speak along with the mayor, E.L. Martin (namesake of Martin City) in attendance. Four bands performed while “simple and pretty” decorations were placed on Union soldier’s graves. Afterward, people went to a picnic dinner.

    The Kansas City Journal questioned whether Decoration Day would survive the course of time, especially since the city did little to commemorate the dead. “Whether [Decoration Day] will survive after those who participated in battles, sieges and hardships under which these brave men went down, remains to be seen, but there are substantial reasons why it should last forever,” the Kansas City Journal reported.

  Kansas City wasn’t as organized with their celebrations, and this is possibly due to its location and role pre and post Civil War. In general, Decoration Day in its earliest celebrations was aimed at Union soldiers, and many of the city’s leaders post-Civil War were either part of the Confederate cause or a sympathizer to it. The newspapers casually mentioned in 1874 that no formal celebrations were happening, but they suggested that citizens should visit soldier’s graves and decorate them.

  But other cities with Confederate leanings made arrangements to celebrate Memorial Day in 1875. Memphis, Tenn. planned a day where ex-Union officers collected battle flags to be carried in a parade while ex-Confederate soldiers joined them carrying the secession flag.

  Even Little Rock, Ark. had an event where “Federal and Confederate, white and Black, united in a joint decoration of the fallen dead on both sides.”

  While larger celebrations seemed to be most common in the northern states, Kansas City continued to disappoint its veterans with a lack of acknowledgment of their sacrifices. In 1877, the Kansas City Journal of Commerce reported, “While in all other cities of Missouri preparations are making for the appropriate observance of Decoration Day, the event seems to have been entirely overlooked or ignored in Kansas City, and will pass as usual without any special recognition.” 

  In 1878, it continued in the same manner, the newspaper blaming “lack of patriotic feeling.” In 1879, the paper wrote, “Let us hope that the graves of Union soldiers will not be entirely forgotten.”

A New Era Via-GAR Posts: 1880s and 1890s

  The growth of the celebration of Decoration Day in Kansas City was due to the growth of the city’s population and its number of Union veterans living nearby. Several active Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) posts surfaced in Kansas City, formed in order to foster camaraderie, campaign for political causes and advocate for veterans. 

  In 1880, McPherson Post No. 4 formed, and this post’s advocacy for Memorial Day celebrations changed the trajectory of the holiday in Kansas City. On May 30, 1880, the post invited all veterans to go to Turner’s Hall at 10th and Main. “Arrangements have been made to decorate every known soldier’s grave in Union Cemetery,” the newspaper reported. They also invited congregations to come with their pastors. 

  At this celebration, two companies marched by drum corps to the cemetery, and each former soldier in the procession was given a red, white and blue ribbon to wear.

  McPherson Post No. 4 continued to lead the way in early celebrations of Memorial Day in the city, and in 1881, Robert T. Van Horn (1826-1916) donated six dozen white parade gloves for the Decoration Day procession to Union Cemetery. The City Council even attended the remarks that year. Slowly but surely, other local posts of the GAR, including the George H. Thomas Post No. 8, began to help with celebrations.

  On May 30, 1882, a special feature was added to Decoration Day festivities. The posts were set to honor two Union soldiers as their bones were reinterred at Union Cemetery. 

  On this date would “be the burial, with honors of war, of the bones of two soldiers named Ray [sic] and Mikeman [sic], who were shot by bushwhackers in 1864, and their bodies hid,” the newspaper claimed. “The bones were never found till 1880. They will be removed to this city and properly interred on Decoration Day.” 

  Further research reveals little about these two mystery men; the newspaper claimed they were members of the 5th Missouri Regiment. This regiment from St. Joseph, Mo. commanded the military post at Independence, Mo. until 1863. 

  In January 1863, five soldiers from this regiment were murdered by bushwhackers. Their commander wrote, “If you could see their mangled bodies. . . They were all wounded and killed afterward in the most horrible manner that fiends could devise. All were shot in the head, and the faces of several were terribly cut to pieces with boot heels. Powder was exploded in one man’s ear, and both ears cut off close to the head.” 

  In March 1863, the same regiment suffered more losses to bushwhackers led by William H. Gregg when the steamboat Sam Gaty was ambushed at Sibley Landing, killing at least five soldiers there.

  The two soldiers reinterred on Memorial Day 1882 at Union Cemetery were found “near Independence near the bluffs,” so it is possible that these soldiers were two of the men killed on the steamboat.

  A fire in the sexton’s cottage at Union Cemetery in 1889 destroyed all records of interments in the graveyard, making it even more difficult to decipher who was laid to rest there.

  On May 30, 1896, the city for the first time organized a joint Memorial Day celebration where both Union and Confederate veterans marched together. On that Saturday, “the marking of ex-Confederates and ex-Union men in the same ranks, under one flag, in honor of one country” assembled together to pay tribute to those fallen in the Civil War. The mayor declared the day a holiday, and a parade assembled at 14th and Locust through the streets.

  In 1897, the ex-Confederates did their own celebration on Monday, May 31 where they marched from 13th and Grand all the way to Forest Hill Cemetery at 69th and Troost. There, Gen. Jo Shelby (1830-1897), a famous Confederate cavalry general, was interred in a somber ceremony.

  The GAR posts in Kansas City continued to arrange for Memorial Day celebrations in the city through the 1890s, although never as grand as other comparable cities in size. By 1897, Confederate Veterans camps across the country peaked at over 1,000 posts. 

  In Kansas City, Kan. at Woodlawn Cemetery in 1905, the GAR Sumner Woman’s Relief Corps No. 22 erected “The Colored Defenders of Freedom Memorial,” placed to honor all the “known and unknown colored soldiers and sailors who fought in defense of the Union from 1861 to 1865.”

  Sadly, no known newspaper articles commemorated this event.

  The narrative of the late war and the celebration of Decoration Day was about to change.

The Lost Cause Narrative Gains Steam- the 20th Century

  It was true that there was little money early-on after the Civil War for monuments and proper burials of Confederate soldiers. In Kansas City, hundreds of men from both sides of the war fell October 21-23, 1864 during the Battle of Westport. Men were buried often where they fell.

  In 1866, a small patch of ground on the current-day southeast corner of Troost Avenue and Gregory was set aside as a Confederate cemetery. On May 20, 1871, thousands gathered at the little burial ground to honor five bodies that had been removed from local farms that were part of the Battle of Westport. They had been interred without known names or ranks.

  Joining these unknown soldiers at the Confederate cemetery was one colonel idolized for his service. Col. Upton Hays, a 30-year-old local man-turned-militant, had fallen in Newtonia, Mo. in 1862 with a bullet through the head.

  By 1890, as roads were being widened, the cemetery that had simple rocks marking those buried there was being threatened. It was proposed in the Kansas City Star that they “may move bodies to Forest Hill and erect an appropriate monument.” Forest Hill Cemetery, founded in 1888, was just across the street from the infringed-upon cemetery and held 320 acres of land between Troost Ave. and Prospect Ave.

  By this point, at least 70 unidentified bodies had been moved to the Confederate cemetery. Many of these soldiers were said to have served under Gen. Jo Shelby. 

  Rather fittingly, Forest Hill sat on the site of Jo Shelby’s last battle against the Union troops. Today, there is a marker inside the cemetery commemorating “Shelby’s Last Stand.” It was stated that the Confederate cemetery held the remains “among the best and bravest in Shelby’s command.”

  Between 1893 and 1894, the seventy-something bodies of Confederate soldiers along with Col. Hays were moved for a third and final time to lots donated by Forest Hill Cemetery.

  The bodies had been moved inside Forest Hill, but there still was no monument to mark them. At the turn of the century, the Daughters of the Confederacy moved to change this. They hosted balls, concerts and lectures to raise the $5,000 needed, and on Memorial Day 1902, thousands gathered, including several hundred ex-Confederate soldiers, near the southeast corner of Forest Hill to see the monument “In Memory of Our Confederate Dead” unveiled. The project was backed by some of the most prominent men of the city.

  Four graves behind the memorial contained, according to the dedication, 75 unknown Confederate soldiers who lost their lives during the Battle of Westport.

  Dr. Jeremy Neely, Civil War and military history professor at Missouri State University, understands the influx of the movement for monuments during this time period. “I think that Confederate memorials say as much, and perhaps more, about the people who raised them and the period in which they were erected than the people of the Civil War generation,” Neely commented.

  Just shy of 50 years after the Civil War, the narrative shifted from a fight over slavery to states’ rights. Organizations like the Daughters of the Confederacy and the Ex-Confederates campaigned for equal treatment in memorials as the “Lost Cause” narrative gained traction.

  Congress enacted in 1906 that the War Department erect headstones for Confederate soldiers who died in federal prisons and military hospitals in the Union states. At the same time, late Confederate soldiers who had died were allowed government-funded headstones to be erected on graves.

  In April 1911, the Kansas City Times reported that the War Department was going to erect a 15-foot granite monument at Union Cemetery to mark graves that had been lost due to the sexton’s cottage fire. The names of 15 Confederate soldiers was known, but the locations of their burials was a mystery.

  On the 47th anniversary of the Battle of Westport, the Daughters of the Confederacy hosted an unveiling of the “Union Confederate Monument” at Union Cemetery. Present was Senator James A. Reed, congressman W.P. Borland and Gen. Jo Shelby’s granddaughter. 

Memorial Day Today

  Initially designed to decorate Civil War veterans’ graves, Memorial Day morphed into decoration of all fallen soldiers’ graves after World War I. Celebrated originally on May 30, it wasn’t until 1971 when Congress declared the last Monday in May as the celebration for Memorial Day. 

  What began as a tribute to both sides of a war that almost tore the country apart has now become a celebration of memorial for all that have passed. No matter its origin, Memorial Day is a time to pay homage to the past and welcome summertime across the country.