Wash., DC, National Memorial Day Parade

[Remise]

P.S. Next year we are planning for a battalion each of Confederates and Federals. We hope you will think about joining us!

[RJSamp]

When did the CSA dead get included in list of 'wars' veterans to remember?

I know that Decoration Day started out with Order No. 11 and Logan, and remembering those who had died in the defence of their country in the late rebellion.....


Somewhere along the way it had to change to Monday, and add Wars to the list.....and add the CSA veterans? I know when I sounded Taps on Memorial Day at Confederate Rest in Forest Hill Cemetery (farthest north CSA gravesite for war dead) in Madison WI there was some 'controversy'..including the lack of attendance by the VFW, Legion members

Thanks!

[Remise]

I don't know when Confederates became part of Memorial Day, but the SCV was in the National Memorial Day Parade before I was, so I cannot question their presence this year or next. Personally, my theory is that they were Americans, too, and there doesn't seem to be a huge flap about their marching on Remembrance Day. There were lots of groups in the parade -- such as the girls on unicycles; the sports car clubs; the veterans of armies from other nations (such as the Republic of China, for example), and some others -- whose presence I might have questioned. But I think they were there for the same reason we were: to honor those Americans who fought and died for their country.

And even if you don't like the idea of Confederates marching in a Memorial Day parade (and my family lost a lot of people fighting them), they did, after all, call it the Confederate States of America.

B.C. Milligan

[Regular3]

When did the CSA dead get included in list of 'wars' veterans to remember? I know that Decoration Day started out with Order No. 11 and Logan, and remembering those who had died in the defence of their country in the late rebellion.. (snip) ...

While what was first named Decoration Day in the North was indeed started by Black Jack but those observances had actually started in the states of the former Confederacy as a day to decorate the graves of their war dead, and he took up the cause: "General Logan had been impressed by the way the South honored their dead with a special day and decided the Union needed a similar day. Reportedly, Logan said that it was most fitting; that the ancients, especially the Greeks, had honored their dead, particularly their heroes, by chaplets of laurel and flowers, and that he intended to issue an order designating a day for decorating the grave of every soldier in the land {including, presumably, former Rebels - dc}, and if he could he would have made it a holiday." Wikipedia