How Columbus influenced the formation of Memorial Day

COLUMBUS, Ga. ( WRBL ) — Columbus is a city that boasts many historic accomplishments, but one shaped how the nation honors those who gave their lives for freedom.

According the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Cemetery Administration (NCA), Prior to its founding on May 5, 1868, by Major General John A. Logan, communities across the nation honored fallen soldiers by decorating graves with flowers on “decoration days.” However, since no official day of remembrance or decoration had been established, the Columbus cemetery was in disarray.

In an effort to improve the city cemetery, a Ladies Memorial Association (LMA) was formed. These LMAs were created in an effort to honor Confederate soldiers and organize memorial days. With the formation of the LMA in Columbus, a media campaign to raise awareness was made.

LMA Secretary Mary Ann Williams wrote a letter to the Columbus Daily Enquirer, in which she advocated “to set apart a certain day to be observed…and be handed down through time as a religious custom of the country, to wreathe the graves of our martyred dead with flowers.”

After this letter was published, the LMA of Columbus established their official Decoration Day as April 26, 1866. However, there was competition brewing for who was going to hold the first official celebration a couple states away.

According to the NCA, the Mississippi city of Columbus held its event one day earlier than the Georgia association planned; thus it claims to be the first actual memorial day event. The Mississippi event was later memorialized by the poet Francis Miles Finch in a piece called, “The Blue and the Gray.”

The April 25 and 26 Memorial Day events were some of the first official events in the country, and efforts such as these reached the ears of Maj. Gen. Logan. The NCA says Maj. Gen. Logan added “several paragraphs” to his original draft of what was to become General Orders 11.

Two years after the celebrations in Georgia and Mississippi, General Orders No. 11 or the “Memorial Day Act” were put in place.  These orders formally established Memorial Day as a Decoration Day on which the nation would remember those who died in service of their country and decorate their graves with flowers.

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