The Sentinel—19
Chapter 5: Among Others, Civil War Event Memorial Day Memorial Day events only happened in the United States in the late 19th century (1800s). Similar types of events have been held the world over for thousands of years. “The ancient Greeks and Romans held annual days of remembrance for loved ones (including soldiers) each year, festooning their graves with flowers and holding public festivals and feasts in their honor... Among those, one of the earliest commemorations in the United
States was organized after the Civil War, by recently freed African Americans. Thousands of Union soldiers were prisoners of war in POW camps in Charleston, South Carolina. Two hundred and fifty prisoners died from exposure and disease and were interred in a mass grave. Three weeks after the Confederate surrender, an unusual procession entered the former camp: On May 1, 1865, more than 1,000 people recently freed from enslave-
ment, accompanied by regiments of the U. S. Colored Troops and a handful of white Charlestonians, gathered in the camp to consecrate a new, proper burial site for the Union dead. The group sang hymns, gave readings, and distributed flowers around the cemetery, which they dedicated to the ‘Martyrs of the Race Course’” [20] General John Logan issued a decree in 1868 (Decoration Day) to commemorate the deaths of 620,000 sol-
diers killed in the Civil War asking Americans to lay flowers at the graves of the war dead. Memorial Day did not become a National Holiday until 1971. The date, May 30 had been selected because it was a date that did not fall on an anniversary date of a Civil War Battle. Boalsburg, Pennsylvania is one of 20 towns that make the claim of Memorial Day starting there. Even from these times, Americans were associating May 30
