Memorial Day

Memorial Day, previously known as Decoration Day, officially named Memorial Day in 1967 by federal law, and the holiday was formally established under its current name when the Uniform Monday Holiday Act took effect in 1971.

Here’s a brief timeline:

• 1868: General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic proclaimed May 30 as Decoration Day, a time for the nation to decorate the graves of Civil War dead.
  
• In 1882 the Grand Army urged that May thirtieth be ‘Memorial Day,’ not ‘Decoration Day,’ as it had commonly been called.
  
• Late 1800s–early 1900s: The name “Memorial Day” gradually gained popularity, and the holiday began to honor all U.S. military personnel who died in service, not just Civil War soldiers.
  
• 1967: The U.S. federal government officially named the holiday Memorial Day.
  
• 1971: Memorial Day was designated a national holiday by Congress and set to be observed on the last Monday in May, as part of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, to provide a three-day weekend.

So while the term “Memorial Day” had been in use for decades, it became the official name only in the late 1960s.

The following article below is from the Medford Historical Society Papers, which are scholarly publications focusing on the history of Medford, Massachusetts. The following article details the early days of Memorial Day and comes from the Medford Historical Register, published from 1898 to 1940. 

MEMORIAL DAY.

May 23 and 24, 1865. Imagine yourself in Washington. A column of soldiers thirty miles in length is passing by. Can you see those regiments from the east and west, those men from the Potomac, from the Cumberland, from the Wilderness, from Chattanooga, as they march down Pennsylvania avenue from the Capitol with their bayonets flashing and battle flags flying? You are witnessing one of the greatest spectacles ever seen in America—a grand review of the Union armies before the troops are mustered out of service.

Bonds of comradeship such as these veterans had formed by their four years of service and sacrifice are not easily broken however, and soon local organizations sprang up for the purpose of fostering these friendships and of honoring the memory of those who had given their lives to preserve the Union. This movement soon became nation-wide, and in 1866 a great national organization was founded under the name of the ‘Grand Army of the Republic,’ with state departments and local posts. The first post was organized at Decatur, Ill., April 6, 1866.

The organization was a fraternal, charitable, and patriotic association, composed exclusively of soldiers and sailors of the United States army, navy, and marine corps who served during the Civil War and had been honorably discharged. The underlying idea of the founder, Dr. B. F. Stevenson, was to have a grand organization of veterans so united by feelings of loyalty and duty that it would be a powerful factor against treason to our government.

On the fifth of May, 1868, Commander-in-Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army issued a general order designating the thirtieth of May, 1868, ‘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.’ He did this with the hope that it would be kept up from year to year. Already in some of the southern states the women had laid their flowers on the graves of the Confederate dead to show their devotion to the ‘Lost Cause,’ but in the north there was no fixed date till 1868. In 1882 the Grand Army urged that May thirtieth be ‘Memorial Day,’ not ‘Decoration Day,’ as it had commonly been called. Since 1910 it has been a legal holiday in most of the states and territories.

‘Memorial Day’ is something more than a decoration day. Every national day is a memorial day. Such days should teach us to feel more strongly our duty to our country. They should fill us with enthusiasm and love for our native land; they should bring home to us more vividly the sacrifices of our fathers, and should make us realize that upon us devolves the task of carrying on the work which they began.

It has been said that the declaiming of Webster’s patriotic sentiments by the school boys of the north prepared them to take up arms to defend the Union in ‘61. May we not with equal truth say that the splendid patriotic work of the Grand Army of the Republic prepared our boys for ‘98, and for the late World War?

But fifty years is a long period in a man’s life, and comparatively few of those who marched with the ‘Boys of 1861’ are with us today. There is no recruiting office in the Grand Army, and when the last member joins his comrades in the Grand Reunion will ‘Memorial Day’ become obsolete? No, the ‘Spanish War Veterans,’ the new ‘American Legion,’ and other affiliated organizations are making themselves such a vital force that Memorial Day will continue to be a day of veneration, of faith, of triumph. Its future is secure.^[1]

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^[1] Medford Historical Society Papers (Vol. 22). Pgs 53-55 (n.d.). Perseus Digital Library.  Page 1.