For those who do not know, Memorial Day began after the Civil War. It was first known as Decoration Day because of the practice of decorating the graves of soldiers killed in the Civil War with flowers. Following World War I, it became known as Memorial Day to honor those who died in all the country’s wars.
But When Was the First Memorial Day Celebration?
The first national celebration of Decoration Day occurred on May 30, 1868, at Arlington National Cemetery. Both Union and Confederate soldiers were buried there.
However, many towns across the country claim to have had the first Decoration Day/Memorial Day celebration.
But one of the earliest, and least known, celebrations happened in Charleston, South Carolina.
Washington Race Course and Jockey Club was a high-end race track and country club in Charleston. Towards the end of the Civil War, Confederate forces took control of the track. They turned it into a prisoner of war camp.
Union prisoners were held in the open air of the track’s infield. Ultimately, approximately 260 Union soldiers died of disease and exposure. The Confederates buried them in a mass grave behind the track’s grandstand.
After Charleston was taken by Union forces and abandoned by the Confederates, freed slaves exhumed the bodies of the Union soldiers from the mass grave. They re-interred them in a new cemetery. They inscribed the fence surrounding the new cemetery with the following: “Martyrs of the Race Course.”
Was This the First Memorial Day Celebration?
On May 1, 1865, 10,000 people, mostly freed slaves, paraded around the racetrack (General Lee had only surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9th). According to news reports in the New York Tribune and Charleston Courier, almost 3,000 black children carrying flowers led the marchers.
Members of several of the black Union regiments formed during the war took part in the parade.
How Remarkable
The first Memorial Day celebration may have taken place in a city where the Civil War began and was organized by newly freed slaves to honor Union soldiers who died fighting for their freedom.
Happy Memorial Day to all. And God bless all those we remember on this day