Forgiveness, the heart of Memorial Day

Memorial Day wasn’t always about the end of school, summer cruises and mattress sales. Decoration Day, as it was originally called, was a day of mourning and remembrance for widows, fatherless children and parents left with an empty place at the table and a gaping hole in their hearts.

The Civil War, according to the Library of Congress, was America’s bloodiest conflict and “Nearly as many men died in captivity during the Civil War as were killed in the whole of the Vietnam War. Hundreds of thousands died of disease. Roughly 2% of the population, an estimated 620,000 men, lost their lives in the line of duty.” From today’s perspective, that’s the equivalent of 6 million lives.

Though History.com has joined the ranks of those engaging in revisionist history, Memorial Day was a tradition begun by Southern white women who began decorating their loved one’s graves even before the Civil War was over. According to the Library of Congress (LOC), records show that by 1865, Mississippi, Virginia, and South Carolina all had precedents for Memorial Day but it was in 1866 when these “steel magnolias” of the defeated and demoralized South honored the dead on both sides that it received national attention.

For instance, May 9, 1866, the Cleveland Daily Leader wrote, “The act was as beautiful as it was unselfish and will be appreciated in the North.”

The New York Commercial Advertiser wrote about the women of Columbus, Georgia, “Let this incident, touching and beautiful as it is, impart to our Washington authorities a lesson in conciliation.”

According to the LOC website, “When a women’s memorial association in Columbus, Mississippi, decorated the graves of both Confederate and Union soldiers April 25, 1866, this act of generosity and reconciliation prompted an editorial piece, published by Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune, and a poem by Francis Miles Finch, “The Blue and the Grey,” published in the Atlantic Monthly. The practice of strewing flowers on soldiers’ graves soon became popular throughout the reunited nation.”

History.com has chosen to ignore the selfless acts of these women who tended the grave of another mother’s son, perhaps even the enemy and perhaps not knowing where her own son was buried. Referring to their acts only as “local observances,” History.com recognizes General John Logan of the Union army who proclaimed the first major Memorial Day in 1868.

These comments are not intended to diminish the contribution of General Logan, he probably had his own demons to fight, but to me it’s important to remember that Memorial Day came from deep inside these women who displayed a Christlike forgiveness.

In honor of my ancestors, those they served with and against, I want to close with a few stanzas from Francis Miles Finch’s “reconciliation” poem, “The Blue and the Gray:”

From the silence of sorrowful hours, The desolate mourners go, Lovingly laden with flowers alike for the friend and the foe, Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment-day, Under the roses, the Blue, under the lilies, the Gray.

No more shall the war-cry sever, Or the winding rivers be red; They banish our anger forever When they laurel the graves of our dead! Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day; — Love and tears for the Blue, Tears and love for the Gray.

The column represents the thoughts and opinions of Connie Clements. Opinion columns are NOT the opinion of the Navasota Examiner.

Clements is a freelance reporter for the Navasota Examiner and an award-winning columnist.