05/23/2026
Millions of Americans will have a 3-Day weekend upcoming, and many of them today probably still do not know what it’s supposed to be about, other than a 3-day weekend. Memorial Day exists to honor brave American men and women who have given their lives in the armed forces. But the origins of Memorial Day have important things to teach, some of them dangerously politically incorrect (trigger alert!). What most Americans probably don’t know is that Memorial Day began as a Confederate holiday (Confederate! The horror!!), only a year after the end of the War Between the States. Below, we are "adding context" (yes, we can do that too) to the story of the Memorial Day holiday and how it came about.
Yes, the national holiday we know as Memorial Day was originally called “Decoration Day”. In the spring of 1866 the Ladies Memorial Association of Columbus, Georgia passed a resolution to set aside one day annually to memorialize the Confederate dead. Additionally, the secretary of the association, Mrs. Charles J. (Mary Ann) Williams was directed to author a letter inviting the ladies in every Southern state to join them in the observance. The letter was written in March of 1866 and sent to all of the principal cities in the South, including Atlanta, Macon, Montgomery, Memphis, Richmond, St. Louis, Alexandria, Columbia, New Orleans, et al.
The date for the holiday was selected by Mrs. Elizabeth Rutherford Ellis. She chose April 26, the first anniversary of Confederate General Johnston's final surrender to Union General Sherman at Bennett Place, NC. For many in the South, that marked the official end of the War. On April 26, 1866, tens of thousands of Southern women commemorated the first “Decoration Day”. They decorated the graves of their soldiers, some husbands, fathers, sons, with flags and flowers in remembrance of what love and sacrifice had wrought. They decorated the few Union graves among their dead with flowers, too. “They were cruel,” said one of the ladies of the Yankee invaders, “only to be true to their cause.”
Some, however, in the northernmost portions of the South did not participate because their flowers were not yet in bloom. Consequently, they selected dates later in the spring to hold their first Confederate Memorial Days. For example, parts of Virginia chose May 10, commemorating Stonewall Jackson's death. Near Petersburg, VA, they chose June 9, the anniversary of a significant battle there. Others opted for Confederate President Jefferson Davis' birthday, June 3.
This simple act of generosity was quickly noted by several important newspapers in the North. “The action of the ladies on this occasion,” said the Daily National Intelligencer in the nation’s capital, “in burying whatever animosities or ill feeling may have been engendered in the late war towards those who fought against them, is worthy of all praise and commendation.” The Cleveland Daily Leader agreed: “The act was as beautiful as it was unselfish, and it will be appreciated in the North.” The New York Commercial Advertiser drew a lasting lesson: “Let this incident, touching and beautiful as it is, impart to our Washington authorities a lesson in conciliation.”
Union General John Logan, at that time Commanding officer of the Grand Army of the Republic, also observed their memorial tradition and began a push to emulate it in the North, eventually helping to launch the US Memorial Day holiday that is currently observed in the United States. To the irritation of some of his colleagues, he acknowledged the holiday’s origins. General Logan's wife wrote that Logan said “it was not too late for the Union men of the nation to follow the example of the people of the South in perpetuating the memory of their friends who had died for the cause they thought just and right." Eventually, the holiday we know today as Memorial Day, was born - based on a tradition begun by ladies of the Confederacy.
These feelings of conciliation or “burying the hatchet” were certainly not unanimous in either the North or the South, but were adopted by many at least for a day. A group of Union veterans explained their intentions in a letter to the Philadelphia Evening Telegraph in 1869: “wishing to bury forever the harsh feelings engendered by the war, Post 19 has decided not to pass by the graves of the Confederates sleeping in our lines, but divide each year between the blue and the grey the first floral offerings of a common country. We have no powerless foes. Post 19 thinks of the Southern dead only as brave men.”
Finally, in 1958, Confederate veterans were recognized by act of Congress as American veterans (not US veterans, and yes there is a difference) and due the same rights and privileges as any other American soldier, thus making Memorial Day about both US and CS soldiers. The tradition continued and a holiday was designated on May 30, until the Uniform Monday Holiday act of 1968 changed Memorial Day to the last Monday in May of each year. To the present, while we celebrate “official” Memorial Day, many Southern states continue to have Confederate Memorial Day holidays. In true Confederate fashion, however, each state recognizes its own date for observance.
On Memorial Day, please stop and take a minute to honor those brave American men and women of all wars past and present who paid the ultimate price in the defense of their rights, their homes, their firesides and their country – brought to you by the Ladies of the South.
Shared from Robert E. Lee Camp 1640
