History of Memorial Day

Memorial Day has a long and rich history. One of the first known public tributes to those who died in battle was in 431 B.C., when the Athenian general and statesman Pericles delivered a funeral oration praising the sacrifice and valor of those killed in the Peloponnesian War. After this ceremony, the tradition of honoring those killed in battle has remained a part of almost every nation’s history.

 In America, the idea of a national day honoring people who died in battle began after the Civil War. In May of 1868, General John A. Logan, the commander-in-chief of the Union veterans’ group known as the Grand Army of the Republic, issued a decree that May 30 should become a nationwide day of commemoration for the more than 620,000 soldiers killed in the Civil War. On Decoration Day, as Logan dubbed it, Americans should lay flowers and decorate the graves of those who died in battle and “whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land.” According to some accounts, Logan chose May 30th because it was a rare day that didn’t fall on the anniversary of a Civil War battle. 

American’s embraced the notion of “Decoration Day” immediately. That first year, more than 27 states held some sort of ceremony, with more than 5,000 people in attendance at a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. By 1890, every former state of the Union had adopted it as an official holiday. But for more than 50 years, the holiday was used to commemorate those killed just in the Civil War, not in any other American conflict. It wasn’t until America’s entry into World War I that the tradition was expanded to include those killed in all wars.

Although the term ‘Memorial Day’ was used in the 1880s, the holiday was officially known as Decoration Day for more than a century. It was officially changed to Memorial Day by federal law and when the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968 went into effect, Memorial Day moved from its traditional observance on May 30th (regardless of the day of the week), to the last Monday in May. 

On this day, the American flag should be hung at half-staff until noon, then raised to the top of the staff. And since 2000, when the U.S. Congress passed legislation, all Americans are encouraged to pause for a National Moment of Remembrance at 3 p.m. local time.