Transcript

5.22.26 · History Hour

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Speaker 1: Springtime tributes to countless fallen Civil War soldiers, Red poppies Waterloo,
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New York and formerly enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina.
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What's the connection between these flowers tributes and the citizens
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of these two cities of the north and South. Stay
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with me and find out. Welcome. This is radioi's History show,
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and I'm your host, Joseph Bolt, so glad to be
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with you for this time. And before we begin today's show,
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I just want to remind you that RADIOI is listener
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driven and we welcome any of your comments or suggestions
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about our programming. So if you have any thoughts, comments, suggestions,
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please call us at eight five nine four two two
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sixty three nine zero and let us know what they are.
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RADIOI is a reading service intended for people who are
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blind or have other disabilities that make it difficult to
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read printed material. Sources for today's show will be sighted
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along the way, So let's get started. Memorial Day was
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born out of necessity. After the American Civil War. A
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battered United States was faced with the task of bearing
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and honoring the six hundred thousand to eight hundred thousand
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Union and Confederate soldiers who had died in the single
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bloodiest military conflict in American history. The first national commemoration
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a Memorial Day was held in Arlington National Cemetery on
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May thirtieth, eighteen sixty eight, where both Union and Confederate
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soldiers are buried. Several towns and cities across America claimed
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to have observed their own earlier versions of Memorial Day
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or Decoration Day as early as eighteen sixty six. The
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earlier name is derived from the fact that decorating graves
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was and remains a central activity of Memorial Day. But
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it wasn't until a remarkable discovery in a dusty Harvard
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University archive in the late nineteen nineties that historians learned
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about a Memorial Day commemoration organized by a group of
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black people freed from enslavement less than a month after
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the Confederacy surrendered in eighteen sixty five. Back in nineteen
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ninety six, David Blight, a professor of American history at
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Yale University, was researching a book on the Civil War
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when he had one of those once in a career
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Eureka moments. A curator at Harvard's Houghton Library asked if
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he wanted to look through two boxes of unsorted material
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from Union veterans. There was a file labeled first Decoration
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Day remembers Blight still amazed at his good fortune, and
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inside on a piece of cardboard was a narrative handwritten
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by an old veteran, plus a date referencing an article
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in the New York Tribune. That narrative told the essence
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of the story that I ended up telling in my
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book of This March on the Race Track in eighteen
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sixty five. The race track in question was the Washington
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Race Course and Jockey Club in Charleston, South Carolina. In
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the late stages of a Civil war, the Confederate Army
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transformed the formerly posh country Club into a makeshift prison
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for Union captives. More than two hundred and sixty Union
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soldiers died from disease and exposure while being held in
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the race track's open air infield. Their bodies were hastily
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buried in a mass grave behind the grand stands. When
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Charleston fell and Confederate troops evacuated the badly damaged city,
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those freed from enslavement remained. One of the first things
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those emancipated men and women did was to give the
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fallen Union prisoners a proper burial. They exhumed the mass
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grave and reinterred the bodies in a new cemetery with
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a tall, whitewashed fence inscribed with the words Martyrs of
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the Racetrack. And then, on May first, eighteen sixty five,
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something even more extraordinary happened. According to two reports the
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Blight found in the New York Tribune and in the
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Charston Courier, a crowd of ten thousand people, mostly freed slaves,
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with some white missionaries, staged a parade around the racetrack.
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Three thousand black school children carried bouquets of flowers and
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sang John Brown's body. Members of the famed fifty fourth
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Massachusetts and other Black Union regiments were in attendance and
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performed double time marches. Black ministers recited verses from the Bible.
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If the news reports are accurate, the eighteen sixty five
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gathering at the Charston Racetrack would be the earliest Memorial
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Day commemoratation on record. Blight excitedly called the Avery Institute
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of Afro American History and Culture at the Charleston Rather
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at the College of Charleston. Looking for more information on
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the historic event. I've never heard of this, they told me,
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said Blyt. But it was clear from the newspaper reports
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that a Memorial Day observance was organized by freed slaves
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in Charleston, at least a year before other U. S.
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Cities and three years before the first national observance. How
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had this been lost to history for over a century.
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This was a story that had really been suppressed, both
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in the local memory and certainly the national memory, says Blyte.
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But nobody who had witnessed it could ever have forgotten it.
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Blight kept digging for more information, but the only other
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mention he found of the racetrack event was in nineteen sixteen,
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in a correspondent sent from a women's Civil War historical
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society in New Orleans to its sister chapter in Charleston,
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asking about a big parade of freed slaves on a
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horse track at the end of the war. I regret
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that I was unable to gather any official information in
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answer to this, wrote the Charleston society's president. That's such
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a telling statement, says Blake. The woman who wrote that
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letter may not have known about it, but the fact
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that she didn't the story Once the war was over
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and Charleston was rebuilt in the eighteen eighties, the city's
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white residence likely had little interest in remembering an event
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held by former enslaved people to celebrate the Union dead.
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That didn't fit their version of what the war was
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all about, says Blight. In time, the old horse Track
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and country Club were torn down, and thanks to a
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gift from a wealthy Northern patron, the Union soldier's graves
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were moved from the humble, white fenced graveyard in Charleston
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to the Beauford National Cemetery. By the time Blight was
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rummaging through the Harvard Archives in nineteen ninety six, the
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story of the first Memorial Day had been entirely forgotten,
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or perhaps not entirely. After his book Race and Reunion
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was published in two thousand and one, Blight gave a
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talk about Memorial Day at the Smithsonian National Museum of
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American History, and after it was finished, an older black
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woman approached him. You mean that story is true, the
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woman asked Blight. I grew up in Charleston and my
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granddaddy used to tell us the story of a parade
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at the old Race Track, and we never knew whether
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to believe him or not. You mean it's true. For Blight,
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it's less important whether the eighteen sixty five commemoration of
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the Martyrs of the Race Track is officially recognized as
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the first Memorial Day. It's the fact that this occurred
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in Charleston, at a cemetery site for the Union dead,
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in a city where the Civil War had begun, says Blaine,
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and that it was organized and done by African American
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former slaves is what gives this whole story such poignancy.
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Although more than twenty towns claimed to be the holiday's birthplace, Bullsburg, Pennsylvania,
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bases its claim on an eighteen sixty four gathering of
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women to mourn those recently killed at Gettysburg in Carbondale, Illinois.
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They're certain that they were first thanks to an eighteen
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sixty six parade led in part by John Logan, who
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two years later would lead the charge for an official holiday.
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There are even two dueling Columbus challengers, one in Mississippi
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and the other in Georgia, who have battled it out
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for Memorial Day supremacy for decades. Only one town, however,
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has received the official seal of approval from the US government.
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In nineteen sixty six, President Lyndon B. J. Johnston Johnson
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signed legislation stating that Waterloo, New York, is the originator
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of the Memorial Day in the US. The town first
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observed a day to remember fallen soldiers on May fifth,
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eighteen sixty six, when they hosted a community wide event
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during which business it is closed and residents decorated the
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graves of soldiers with flowers and flags. On that day,
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General John A. Logan, commander in chief for the Civil
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War Union Veterans Group, called for a nationwide day of
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remembrance later that month. The thirtieth of May eighteen sixty eight,
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is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or
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otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense
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of their country during the Late Rebellion, and whose bodies
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now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard
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in the land. He proclaimed the May thirtieth date for
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Decoration Day, as he called it was chosen because it
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wasn't the anniversary of any particular battle. While some historians
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believe that the date was chosen to ensure that flowers
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across the country would be in full bloom. On the
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first Decoration Day, General James Garfield made a speech at
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Arlington National Cemetery and five thousand participants decorated the graves
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of twenty thousand Civil War soldiers buried there. Of course,
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Decoration Day gradually became known as Memorial Day and originally
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honored only those lost while fighting in the Civil War.
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Even before the Civil War ended, women's groups across much
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of the South were gathering informally to decorate the graves
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of Confederate dead. In April of eighteen eighty six, the
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Ladies' Memorial Association of Columbus Georgia resolved to commemorate the
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fallen soldiers once a year. However, Southern commemorations were rarely
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held on one standard day, with observations differing by the
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state and spread out across much of the spring and
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early summer. It is a tradition that continues even today,
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with nine states recognizing a Confederate Memorial Day, with events
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held on Confederate President's Jefferson Davis Birthday or the day
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on which General Thomas Stonewall Jackson was killed. But it
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was during World War One when the United States found
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itself embroiled in yet another major conflict that the holiday
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evolved to commemorate American military personnel who had died in
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all the wars, which eventually came to include World War II,
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the Korean War, Vietnam, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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For decades, Memorial Day continued to be observed on May thirtieth,
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the date General Logan had selected, but in nineteen sixty eight,
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Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established Memorial
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Day as the last Monday in May in order to
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create a three day week end for federal employees. That
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change went into effect in nineteen seventy one. The same
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law also declared Memorial Day of federal holiday. General John A. Logan,
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previously mentioned founder of Memorial Day holiday, had a long
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and distinguished career after the war. Logan, who had served
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as a U. S congressman before resigning to rejoin the army,
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returned to his political career, eventually serving in both the
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House and Senate, and was the unsuccessful Republican candidate for
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Vice president in eighteen eighty four. When he died two
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years later, Logan's body laid to rest in the Rotunda
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of the United States Capital, making him one of just
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thirty three people to have received that honor. To day, Washington,
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d C's Logan's Circle and several townships across the country
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are named in honor of this champion of veterans and
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those killed in battle. The following article is from the
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website The Daily yon Com entitled Bearing Flowers and Tradition,
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The Next Generation takes on the duty of Decoration Day,
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written by Tracy Staley in May of twenty twenty one.
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While their friends are cannonballing into the city pool this weekend,
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my sons will spend the day in an Eastern Kentucky cemetery,
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placing flowers on the grave of relatives they never knew.
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We are going back home on Decoration Day, a folk
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tradition practiced by generations of Appellachians and Southerners, dedicated to
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visiting cemeteries where their families are buried, to clean and
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decorate their graves, and often to attend a religious service
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and dinner on the cemetery grounds. Like most who grew
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up in Eastern Kentucky, I've been practicing various rites of
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Decoration Day all my life. I loved the reunions, playing
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with my cousins, and filling plates of food and desserts.
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Although I admit I have often seen the other parts
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of Decoration Day as an unnecessary effort. I had little
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interest in carrying on. What good was there in spending
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money on artificial flowers for people who would never know
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you made the gesture. Yet this year something changed. Perhaps
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it was turning forty, or the reckoning of the pandemic,
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or both that made Decoration Day seem urgent and important
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not only to observe, but to pass down to my children.
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As my perspective changed, my interests grew and sent me
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seeking answers both historical and personal, about the culture, tradition,
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its origins, and why I felt a sudden urge to
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drag my three children to a cemetery on their first
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week of summer vacation in Ohio. The streets of my
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small town are lined with tiny American flags. Living near
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a military base with many active duty and retired US
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Air Force neighbors, I am keenly aware of the reverence
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paid to Memorial Day. Each year I find myself asking
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my friends, we always call it Decoration Day. We decorated
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everyone's graves, did you? The answer was with rare exception, no.
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Secretly I worked. I worried rather if someone I had
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incorrectly celebrated a patriotic holiday. Was this the same as
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not knowing I needed to light a flag at night
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or take it down in the rain? Did we get
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this wrong? Had we expanded selfishly to include everyone when
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we should have been only honoring those who died in battle?
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For insight, I turned to the book Decoration Day in
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the Mountains by folkloreist Alan Jaboor. Decoration Day, Jabor wrote,
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actually inspired Memorial Day, pre dating any post Civil War
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celebration in the South or North. Before the war, Appellachians
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and Southerners were already practicing what they called Decoration Day,
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also called a decoration, which involved an annual cleaning of
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community cemeteries, decorating them with flowers, and holding a religious
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service in the cemetery, often with dinner on the ground.
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Families spent weeks leading up to Decorating Day making buds
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and petals from bright crape paper, cleaning the cemeteries. After
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reading Jabor's book, I called my grandmother, with whom I
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had also or rather whom I had tagged along to
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the cemetery, reunions and flower baring expeditions. It was she
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who had carried the duty of Decoration Day to me,
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and I wanted to know why, so I asked her,
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can you tell me what you remember about Decoration Day?
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She said, yes, it used to be a big day
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for people. When I was a little girl, my grandma
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would start in her spare time and make crape paper flowers.
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She usually made them out of bright red and turquoise
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and bright pink and white crape paper. They would make
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a bud and cut out petals and take a knife
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to the pedal and scrape the end of it to
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make it lay down and curl. They would have their
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wire and put that bud on the end of the
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wire and start with the little petals and tie them on.
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It was about two and a half miles to that cemetery,
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and Grandpa would always walk and Grandma would be on
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the horse. She would have a basket full of fried chicken,
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maybe fried pies and cake, and me I was always running.
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We cut through the hills instead of going on the
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main road. We'd come down so far out of that
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hollow and then cut through the hill. When you go
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through the hills there's wild honeysuckle, the prettiest orange, and
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as you go up through there there are pine trees
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and it smells like pine all the way through. It
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was where Grandma's babies were buried, one who died when
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they were born, and her son who died when he
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was twenty one. They'd sing and decorate graves and talk,
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and a lot of them hadn't seen each other in
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a month at least. They had a preacher. He always,
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at least to me, preached too long, and I would
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get so hot and tired that I'd just want to
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hurry up and get gone. I'll be honest with you,
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I was kindly like you young'uns. I never was still
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as far as standing around and watching what everyone did,
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I just sure didn't. But I do remember decorating the graves.
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I think that it's important to decorate. Hearing her stories
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made it clear. Decoration Day for me was the remembering,
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the linking myself and my children to the generations before us.
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And so today my children will carry the flowers over
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the hillside to the graves of their great grandfather and
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great great grandparents and other relatives. We'll make sure to
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place a small bouquet on the stone of my grandfather's
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little brother, who died as an infant. They'll listen to
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our stories as we walk around the cemetery, and I
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hope feel connected to the people who came before them.
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They will get hot, tired, and bored, like their great
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mother eighty years before them. They will want us to
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hurry up and get gone, But someday maybe they will
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want to come back. From nineteen fourteen to nineteen eighteen,
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World War One took a greater human toll than any
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previous conflict. The Great War as it was then known,
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also ravaged the landscape of Western Europe, where most of
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the fiercest fighting took place. From the devastated landscape of
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the battlefields, the red poppy would grow. The brutal clashes
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between Allied and Central powers. Soldiers tore up fields and forests,
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tearing up trees and plants, and wreaking havoc on the
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soil below. But in the warm early spring of nineteen fifteen,
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bright red flowers began peeking through the battle scarred land.
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The flower known variously as the Flanders poppy, the corn poppy,
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the red poppy. Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, a Canadian who
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served as a brigade surgeon for an Allied artillery unit,
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spotted a cluster of poppies that spring shortly after a
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major battle. In modern day Americans typically wear the symbolic
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red flower on Memorial Day to commemorate the sacrifice of
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so many men and women who have given their lives
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fighting for their country. Sources for today's show with History
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dot Com titled Memorial Day from the History dot Com
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editors in May of twenty two and History dot com
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one of the earliest Memorial death ceremonies was held by
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freed American African Americans, written by David Ruse in May
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of twenty twenty, and finally History dot Com the World
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War One origin of the poppy as a remembrance symbol
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written by Sarah Pruitt in May of twenty twenty. I
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will end this history of Memorial Day with one of
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my favorite quotes from none under the Winston Churchill, who
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once said, never in the field of human conflict was
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so much owed by so many to so few. From
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myself and from Radio Eye, this is Joseph Bolt wishing
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you a memorable, memorable Memorial Day.