As we approach Memorial Day, it would be appropriate to review the holiday’s origins and meaning. More than 24 cities and towns claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day. The decoration of soldiers’ graves with flowers had long been a common practice.

Here in Columbus the decoration of Confederate graves began in 1863. Two years later, there was a ceremony by the formerly enslaved people of Charleston, S.C., honoring Union soldiers buried there. Such decoration days occurred in many towns across America. The suggestion for a single day, April 26, 1866, for towns across the South to decorate Confederate graves came from a committee of ladies in Columbus, Georgia.

The Richmond Examiner of March 22, 1866, reported movements had begun by ladies’ associations in Winchester, Virginia; Columbus, Georgia; and across the South to care for and “garland those tombs of the heroic and dear with all that is beautiful and fragrant.” It was to make the graves “a land of flowers.” April 26 was reported as being chosen, as it was the day Confederate Gen. Johnston had surrendered and was thus a fitting day to commemorate lost loved ones.

No one place can claim credit for Memorial Day. It evolved out of a common practice of placing flowers on soldiers’ graves, not just honoring the fallen brave but becoming an instrument of reconciliation for a wartorn nation. Columbus was not the only place where flowers were placed as a healing act on graves of both northern and southern soldiers. Columbus’ Decoration Day ceremony on April 25, 1866, was probably a misreading of the ladies association in Columbus, Georgia, calling for such ceremonies across the south on April 26. In Macon, Georgia, on April 26 both Union and Confederate graves were decorated with flowers, and I have also found a report of that happening in Columbus, Georgia.

Officially, Waterloo, New York, has been recognized as the birthplace of Memorial Day, based on a celebration there in May 1868 after a proclamation issued by Gen. John Logan, commander of the Grand Army of the Republic – the Union veterans’ organization. That proclamation, though, only called for the decoration of Union graves. In 1877 the organization, using language taken from the poem “The Blue and the Gray,” which honored the ladies of Columbus, Mississippi, decreed that all graves Union and Confederate should be decorated.

What was the role of Columbus, Mississippi, and the graves in Friendship Cemetery in the beginnings of Memorial Day? During the Civil War, Columbus was a major Confederate hospital center, and more than 2,100 Confederate soldiers, and at least 51 Union soldiers, died and were buried here. All the Confederate soldiers, and 42 of the Union soldiers, were buried in Friendship Cemetery.

Nine Union soldiers who died during the occupation of Columbus at the war’s end were buried in Sandfield, the city’s cemetery for paupers and enslaved persons. Thirty-two Union soldiers from Friendship and the nine from Sandfield Cemetery were removed to Corinth National Cemetery in October 1867. In 1877 the remaining unmarked Union graves were still being decorated by ladies of Columbus along with Confederate graves on Decoration Day. That tradition continued at least until 1919, after which the exact location of the remaining unmarked Union graves became lost except for being in the southwest corner of the cemetery.

The decoration of both Union and Confederate graves with flowers first occurred in Columbus on April 25, 1866, with a commemoration organized by Ms. Mat Morton, Mrs. Jane Fontaine, Mrs. Green Hill and Mrs. Augusta Sykes. It was Mrs. Sykes, whose husband and brother-in-law both died during the war, who said each Union soldier was also “some mother’s darling” and should also be cared for. That act of reconciliation and compassion struck a chord with the national press, and the story of Friendship was told across the country.

The Lancaster (Ohio) Gazette on May 24, 1866, cited the Zanesville (Ohio) Courier in reporting on the “ceremony” in Friendship Cemetery: “If this be true and there seems to be little room to doubt it, the ladies of Columbus, Mississippi, have set a noble example worthy of imitation by all. Let it be told wherever news is told, in commemoration of them, and that all may be incited to go and do likewise.”

Then on May 26, 1866, a news item in the Raleigh, N.C., Weekly Standard described the ceremony at Friendship Cemetery and concluded by saying, “This act elicits the approval of the press of that city, which claims that the war being over, no distinction should be made between the departed heroes of opposing sides.” The same article appeared in the Petersburg, Virginia, Express. A correspondent for the Cincinnati Commercial called it a “simple incident of unselfishness and womanly delicacy.” That article was reprinted by The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, New York, on May 12, 1866.

In Lexington County, Missouri, the weekly newspaper there on June 27, 1866, commented, “Like an oasis in the desert was that pleasing incident which is recorded in the Columbus Index. …This tender Christian act … kindles a spark of hope that we may, at some future time, become in heart one people. … May God bless the kind hearted ladies of Columbus.”

Word of the Ladies of Columbus honoring all fallen soldiers, both Confederate and Union, quickly spread nationwide as an example of reconciliation. The New York Tribune reported, “The women of Columbus, Mississippi, have shown themselves impartial in their offerings made to the memory of the dead. They strewed flowers alike on the graves of the Confederate and of the National soldiers.”

That account inspired Francis Miles Finch to write a poem, “The Blue and the Gray,” which was published in the September 1867, Atlantic Monthly and dedicated to the ladies of Columbus. It became a Memorial Day tradition for the poem The Blue and the Gray to be read as part of the ceremony.

The idea of a memorial day did not originate at Friendship Cemetery, but the compassionate actions of the ladies of Columbus captured the nation’s heart and was an inspiration for Memorial Day’s creation. Their action continued to inspire as shown by a May 29, 1869, article in the Maine Farmer of Augusta, Maine: “2 years ago it was stated that the women of Columbus, Mississippi, showed themselves impartial in the offerings which they made to the memory of the dead; for they strewed flowers alike on the graves of the confederate and national soldiers. All will remember the beautiful poem of ‘The Blue and the Gray,’ written in commemoration of this incident. Let others emulate this spirit. … Thus may the ceremonial of ‘Decoration Day’ become a truly national one and do much to remove any lingering vestiges of heart burning, and to bring all sections of ‘our common country’ into harmonious and fraternal relations with each other.”

More recently the Columbus Ladies’ act of compassion and role in Memorial Day was recognized by President Obama in his 2010 Memorial Day Address when he said, “On April 25, 1866, about a year after the Civil War ended, a group of women visited a cemetery in Columbus, Mississippi, to place flowers by the graves of Confederate soldiers who had fallen at Shiloh. As they did, they noticed other graves nearby, belonging to Union dead. But no one had come to visit those graves or place a flower there. So, they decided to lay a few stems for those men too, in recognition not of a fallen Confederate or a fallen Union soldier, but a fallen American.”

Today the Friendship Cemetery graves of those who have served their country include men and women from every major conflict. It is truly sacred ground. It is also ground upon which four ladies in 1866 stepped forward and showed that though we may differ in views with those of other states or political parties we are all united as Americans. As we enjoy our Memorial Day barbecues and gatherings, we need to remember Memorial Day began as a day to honor those who sacrificed their lives ensuring that we remain a free people. We should never forget their sacrifice.

Visit Columbus will celebrate Memorial Day with events remembering and honoring those who gave their lives in service to our country. At 9 a.m. May 23, there will be a flag placement at Sandfield Cemetery. Then on May 24 there will be a flag placement at Friendship Cemetery at 9 a.m. followed by a Memorial Day program at 10. Beginning at 11 a.m. there will be live music, food trucks and a fly over at the Riverwalk.

Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].

READER FAVORITES

• 

  Our View: From fossil finds to kayak rides

  By Dispatch Editorial Board • 2 days ago

• 

  Roses and Thorns: 6-6-26

  By Dispatch Editorial Board • 19 hours ago