How did the impactful federal holiday begin in the United States?

Memorial Day is held on the last Monday of May each year in the United States. 

The federal holiday was originally called “Decoration Day”. Its history dates back to the Civil War that lasted from 1861 to 1865. 

Toward the end of the Civil War and beyond, communities in the North and the South decorated the graves of fallen soldiers with floral honors on springtime “decoration days”. 

The holiday found its beginning in the United States with a “Memorial Day Order” issued by Grand Army of the Republic Commander-in-Chief John A. Logan on May 5th, 1868. 

The Grand Army of the Republic was a politically powerful organization that consisted of Union veterans. 

The order by Logan formally established “Memorial Day” as a decoration day when the country would honor its fallen soldiers and decorate their graves with flowers. 

While there has been speculation about the origin of when the first gathering occurred, recent research has found that women of Columbus, Georgia first lobbied in 1866 for an official Memorial Day where the nation would honor the dead from the Civil War by participating in decorating their graves with flowers. 

Another early Memorial Day account happened in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania. A trio of women decorated the graves of fallen soldiers in the October of 1864. 

According to some accounts, the first widely observed Memorial Day was on May 30th, 1868 following Logan’s order. 

Former Union General and sitting Ohio Congressman James Garfield gave a speech at the Arlington National Cemetery. Afterwards, 5,000 participants helped decorate the graves of more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers who were buried there. 

Memorial Day has existed as a holiday for over 150 years. In 1971, it was declared a federal holiday by an act of Congress. 

Today, citizens across the country still participate in the honored tradition of decorating the graves of our fallen soldiers with flowers and participating in remembering those war heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.