[6] Then known as Decoration Day and observed on May 30, the holiday was proclaimed by Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic to honor the Union soldiers who had died in the American Civil War.

However, the National Cemetery Administration, a division of the Department of Veterans Affairs, credits Mary Ann Williams with originating the "idea of strewing the graves of Civil War soldiers—Union and Confederate" with flowers.

Others may stem from general traditions of decorating soldiers' graves with flowers, rather than specific events leading to the national proclamation.

[16] This decoration was for the funeral of the first soldier killed during the Civil War, John Quincy Marr, who died on June 1, 1861, during a skirmish at the Battle of Fairfax Courthouse in Virginia.

[20] On May 1, 1865, in Charleston, South Carolina, the recently freed Black population held a parade of 10,000 people to honor 257 dead Union soldiers.

[W]e can keep alive the memory of debt we owe them by dedicating at least one day in the year, by embellishing their humble graves with flowers, therefore we beg the assistance of the press and the ladies throughout the South to help us in the effort to set apart a certain day to be observed, from the Potomac to the Rio Grande and be handed down through time as a religious custom of the country, to wreathe the graves of our martyred dead with flowers.

Let the soldiers’ graves, for that day at least, be the Southern Mecca, to whose shrine her sorrowing women, like pilgrims, may annually bring their grateful hearts and floral offerings.

The National Cemetery Administration, a division of the Department of Veterans Affairs,[8] and scholars attribute the beginning of a Memorial Day practice in the South to a group of women of Columbus, Georgia.

[20] The holiday was observed in Atlanta, Augusta, Macon, Columbus and elsewhere in Georgia as well as Montgomery, Alabama; Memphis, Tennessee; Louisville, Kentucky; New Orleans, Louisiana; Jackson, Mississippi, and across the South.

11 to the Grand Army of the Republic to observe May 30, 1868, the earlier version of the holiday began to be referred to as Confederate Memorial Day.

[18] Following Mary William's call for assistance,[8] four women of Columbus, Mississippi a day early on April 25, 1866, gathered together at Friendship Cemetery to decorate the graves of the Confederate soldiers.

[32][33][34][35] According to the United States Library of Congress, "Southern women decorated the graves of soldiers even before the Civil War’s end.

"[36] The earliest Southern Memorial Day celebrations were simple, somber occasions for veterans and their families to honor the dead and tend to local cemeteries.

[37] In following years, the Ladies' Memorial Association and other groups increasingly focused rituals on preserving Confederate culture and the Lost Cause of the Confederacy narrative.

On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan issued a proclamation calling for "Decoration Day" to be observed annually and nationwide; he was commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), an organization of and for Union Civil War veterans founded in Decatur, Illinois.

This action followed House Concurrent Resolution 587, in which the 89th Congress had officially recognized that the patriotic tradition of observing Memorial Day had begun one hundred years prior in Waterloo, New York.

In 1865, the federal government also began creating the United States National Cemetery System for the Union war dead.

Historian Stuart McConnell reports:[58] on the day itself, the post assembled and marched to the local cemetery to decorate the graves of the fallen, an enterprise meticulously organized months in advance to assure that none were missed.

Finally came a simple and subdued graveyard service involving prayers, short patriotic speeches, and music ... and at the end perhaps a rifle salute.In 1868, some Southern public figures began adding the label "Confederate" to their commemorations and claimed that Northerners had appropriated the holiday.

[37] Changes in the ceremony's hymns and speeches reflect an evolution of the ritual into a symbol of cultural renewal and conservatism in the South.

[62]: 352 Memorial Day speeches became an occasion for veterans, politicians, and ministers to commemorate the Civil War and, at first, to rehash the "atrocities" of the enemy.

[63] In the national capital in 1913 the four-day "Blue-Gray Reunion" featured parades, re-enactments, and speeches from a host of dignitaries, including President Woodrow Wilson, the first Southerner elected to the White House since the War.

Heflin was a noted orator; his choice as Memorial Day speaker was criticized, as he was opposed for his support of segregation; however, his speech was moderate in tone and stressed national unity and goodwill, gaining him praise from newspapers.

No doubt, this has contributed a lot to the general public's nonchalant observance of Memorial Day.In 2000, Congress passed the National Moment of Remembrance Act, asking people to stop and remember at 3:00 pm.

[69] On Memorial Day, the flag of the United States is raised briskly to the top of the staff and then solemnly lowered to the half-staff position, where it remains only until noon.

Scholars,[73][74][75][76] following the lead of sociologist Robert Bellah, often make the argument that the United States has a secular "civil religion"—one with no association with any religious denomination or viewpoint—that has incorporated Memorial Day as a sacred event.

[78][79] In 1915, following the Second Battle of Ypres, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, a physician with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, wrote the poem "In Flanders Fields".

Decoration practices are localized and unique to individual families, cemeteries, and communities, but common elements that unify the various Decoration Day practices are thought to represent syncretism of predominantly Christian cultures in 19th century Southern Appalachia with pre-Christian influences from Scotland, Ireland, and African cultures.

[83] According to scholars Alan and Karen Jabbour, "the geographic spread ... from the Smokies to northeastern Texas and Liberia, offer strong evidence that the southern Decoration Day originated well back in the nineteenth century.