A Tale of Two Decoration Days

There seems to be a dispute over the first Decoration Day. Some historians claim ex-slaves in Charleston, SC started this tradition on May 1, 1865 after they reinterred the Union dead at a prison camp that once served as a race track. Here is an excerpt from Post and Courier:


On a Monday morning that spring, nearly 10,000 former slaves marched onto the grounds of the old Washington Race Course, where wealthy Charleston planters and socialites had gathered in old times. During the final year of the war, the track had been turned into a prison camp. Hundreds of Union soldiers died there.


For two weeks in April, former slaves had worked to bury the soldiers. Now they would give them a proper funeral.

The procession began at 9 a.m. as 2,800 black school children marched by their graves, softly singing "John Brown's Body."

Soon, their voices would give way to the sermons of preachers, then prayer and — later — picnics. It was May 1, 1865, but they called it Decoration Day.




Here is another version published by the Abbeville Institute:


The women who held the first “Decoration Day” in Columbus, Georgia in 1866 did so to honor the dozens of Confederate soldiers buried in Linwood Cemetery. This was soon replicated across the South. The Grand Army of the Republic copied the event in 1868, causing another Southern innovation to be coopted by Yankee do-gooders.

American soon honored Confederate dead as part of “Memorial Day” events, including those like President William McKinley who wore the blue.

Southerners eventually decided to hold separate “memorial day” remembrances in April as part of “Confederate Memorial Day.” They wanted as a people to reflect on the cost of war. Their newly gained poverty was a daily reminder, but these wives, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, cousins, aunts, uncles, sons, and daughters of fallen heroes still burned with the flame of defiance. They put down their swords but did not concede that their men were “traitors.”


Whatever its origin, Decoration Day was the product of a horrible civil war that robbed the South of its youth and impoverished generations yet to come. Yes, we should remember our honored dead, but we should also remember what an all-powerful central government can do to a people who believe in self-government.


Source:

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/the-confederate-origins-of-memorial-day/?mc_cid=e7ce50d75f&mc_eid=daea235a8f


https://www.postandcourier.com/news/the-first-memorial-day/article_ba50dcb3-d261-5306-b771-1fce87a27f26.html