TENNESSEE: Memorial Day Origins Rooted in Civil War
BLOUNT COUNTY, Tenn. — Memorial Day is a time of remembrance of those who died while in service to the United States. Solemn observances in which these fallen veterans are honored include decorating their final resting places with flowers and flags, placing wreaths at monuments, such as the Blount County War Dead Memorial at the Blount County Courthouse, and the National Moment of Remembrance, which encourages all Americans to pause wherever they are at 3 p.m. local time on Memorial Day for a moment of silence to remember and honor those who have died in service to the nation.
Memorial Day history
Memorial Day has its roots in the Civil War, which began in 1861 and ended in 1865. According to The National Park Service website at www.nps.gov, in those four bloody years, more than 622,000 Americans, from the North and the South, had died. With the conclusion of the war, “there was a yearning for remembrance of those lost — for healing the wounds of war.”
Also from this website, several cities claim to have been the first to start Memorial Day observances, then called “Decoration Day.” Among them are Waterloo Village in New York. A pharmacist here, Henry C. Welles, is credited with the inspiration that “It would be honorable and appropriate to recall the sacrifice of the patriotic dead by displaying floral tributes on the gravestones of the fallen.”
On April 25, 1866, in Columbus, Mississippi, the site of a hospital and also a burial ground for Union and Confederate soldiers from the Battle of Shiloh, four women decided to honor the Confederate and Union war dead in the local cemetery with flowers. The action was commemorated in a poem by lawyer Francis Miles Finch, “The Blue and the Gray,” published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1867.
In Charleston, South Carolina, in 1865, “newly freed African Americans reburied 257 Union soldiers, who had died in a prison camp and were hastily buried, in order to give them the proper honors in death. The new graves were blanketed by flowers and dedicated, with thousands of people parading down the racetrack that had been the site of the prison camp.”
Waterloo, New York, was proclaimed as the birthplace of Memorial Day by state and federal governments in 1966.
“Decoration Day”
In 1868, four years after burials started at General Robert E. Lee’s former Virginia estate, Arlington, the first official “Decoration Day” was held. A proclamation issued by General John Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic that established May 30 as the official holiday was read by the master of ceremonies. In the Order, the General proclaimed the day “Decoration Day.” The proclamation reads, “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated 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.” On that day, 5,000 participants decorated the graves of 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried at Arlington Cemetery.
Although Memorial Day originated as a day to remember fallen Civil War soldiers, after World War I, all war dead were included in the commemorative events. The day officially was named “Memorial Day” by Congress in 1967, and in 1968, Congress created a three-day weekend encompassing Memorial Day through the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, setting the holiday as the fourth Monday in May.
Local historians speak
Local historians Myrtle James and Elaine Russell have worked for many years on gathering and documenting information on local veterans and taking part in the services in their honor.
James, regent of the Mary Blount Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, recalled observances from her youth spent with her aunts and her grandmother.
“We made homemade flowers out of Kleenex and some from different colors of crepe paper,” James said. “We would dip the tips of the Kleenex ones in food color. They were beautiful and a lot of work. We would place them on all our families’ graves in three different cemeteries. As soon as the dew fell at night they started to wilt away. We placed peonies, snowballs and hibiscus flowers or whatever was blooming, too. Then, we called it Decoration Day and of course, had a great meal outside.”
James and other DAR members participated in the Veterans Memorial Service Saturday at RIO Central Church. They will also participate with flag placements on veterans’ graves at both East Tennessee State Veterans Cemeteries in Knox County as well as at the Knoxville National Cemetery, a federal cemetery.
“We place the flag, say the soldier’s name and salute,” James said. “Other veterans can salute the military way, and the rest of us place our right hand over our heart. Some of our veterans will leave a coin on the marker.” Coins indicate that someone has visited the gravesite, to let the families know their veterans are not forgotten.
James said the Heritage Site Foundation Inc. has found and documented 223 veterans at 63 sites in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and several persons went to Cades Cove Saturday to place flags at veterans’ graves there. “On June 11 at the Great Smoky Mountain Heritage Center in Townsend, the foundation will host an event called ‘Honor our Great Smoky Mountain Veterans,’” she said. “A lot of our Blount County veterans buried in the park will be honored.”
These observances are important to James, who said, “I have several veterans in my family and I’m thankful for their service. Veterans have given us freedom, security and the greatest nation on earth. It is impossible to put a price on that.”
A different Memorial Day
Russell, a member of several local historical groups, is equally passionate about recognizing veterans.
Her father, the late Homer Bluford Clonts, a Navy signalman who served in the Pacific on the USS Eldorado from 1943 to 1945, kept a combination journal and map during his service. That map, donated by Russell, is now part of the holdings of the Veterans History Project in the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center (www.loc.gov/vets) and was featured in a story in The Library of Congress Magazine in 2015.
Russell has conducted video interviews of local veterans for the Veterans History Project, including George Richard Chapman, of Maryville, a U.S. Navy veteran. He concluded his interview with an emotional statement, saying he has “a deep sense of how great it is to live in a free country. When I think about some of the things our veterans have gone through, I just can’t imagine it, to know people love their country that much.”
As a member of the Captain W. Y. C. Hannum Chapter 1881 United Daughters of the Confederacy, Russell has done extensive research on Confederate veterans who were from Blount County and died or were killed in service. She said, “The Confederate monument at the Blount County Courthouse will be updated with those additional names,” a project that was completed on May 25 with the addition of 10 names.
“The 1867 hymn by Nella L. Sweet, called ‘Kneel Where Our Loves Are Sleeping,’ was dedicated to Southern ladies, who as a result of the War Between the States, actively paid homage to their fallen soldiers by decorating and honoring their gravesites,” Russell said. “There is much dispute as to the origins of Memorial Day, but it is not difficult to imagine that women of the South are the ones who inspired the tradition of laying flowers and wreaths on the graves of veterans of all wars.”
In addition to Memorial Day observances, some Southern states have an additional day for honoring the Confederate war dead. Tennessee celebrates on June 3, Jefferson Davis’ birthday. “The Captain W. Y. C. Hannum Chapter 1881 annually places flags on the graves of Confederate veterans buried at Magnolia, Mount Moriah, Mount Gilead and Bakers Creek Cemeteries,” Russell said.
–thedailytimes.com
