John Logan “Memorial Day Order” (May 5, 1868)
General Logan, a Civil War veteran, was the leader of the Grand Army of the Republic, a powerful fraternal organization of Union veterans. The order he issued calling for a day to mark the graves of those who had died in the fight to preserve the Union and end slavery became the basis for Decoration Day, later called Memorial Day. Read a complete history of the holiday here: “The Divisive and Partisan History of Memorial Day”
We are organized, comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose, among other things, “of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers, sailors and marines who united to suppress the late rebellion.” What can aid more to assure this result than by cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes? Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten, as a people, the cost of a free and undivided republic.
Source and Complete Text: National Cemetery Administration
Read more about Memorial Day, the Civil War, and the history of slavery in these books:
Don’t Know Much About the Civil War (Harper paperback, Random House Audio)
Now In paperback THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF AMERICA AT WAR: Untold Tales from Yorktown to Fallujah
Don’t Know Much About® History: Anniversary Edition (Harper Perennial and Random House Audio)
