BALTIMORE (AP) — Maryland’s United Daughters of the Confederacy are holding a special ceremony in Baltimore to mark Confederate Memorial Day.
The event Saturday is meant to honor thousands of soldiers who served the Confederacy during the Civil War. The group is gathering at the Loudon Park Cemetery in Baltimore where 600 Confederate soldiers are buried.
The group says soldiers from nearly all the Confederate states are represented at the cemetery.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
11 comments:
The spirit of Decoration Day.
Wow. Here in our local cemetery there are a few Civil War graves. I don't know if any of them have descendants that remember them.
Decoration Day, indeed.
from Wiki: In Charleston, South Carolina, in 1865, freedmen (freed -enslaved Africans) celebrated at the Washington Race Course, today the location of Hampton Park. The site had been used as a temporary Confederate prison camp for captured Union soldiers in 1865, as well as a mass grave for Union soldiers who died there. Immediately after the cessation of hostilities, freedmen exhumed the bodies from the mass grave and reinterred them in individual graves. They built a fence around the graveyard with an entry arch and declared it a Union graveyard. On May 1, 1865, a crowd of up to 10,000, mainly black residents, including 2800 children, proceeded to the location for events that included sermons, singing, and a picnic on the grounds, thereby creating the first Decoration Day-type celebration.
Beginning in 1866, the Southern states had their own Memorial Days, ranging from April 26 to mid-June. The birthday of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, June 3, became a state holiday in 10 states by 1916. Across the South, associations were founded after the War to establish and care for permanent cemeteries for Confederate soldiers, organize commemorative ceremonies and sponsor impressive monuments as a permanent way of remembering the Confederate cause and tradition. Women provided the leadership in these associations, paving the way to establish themselves as capable of public leadership.
The earliest Confederate Memorial Day celebrations were simple, somber occasions for veterans and their families to honor the day and attend to local cemeteries. Around 1890, there was a shift from this consolatory emphasis on honoring specific soldiers to public commemoration of the Confederate cause. Changes in the ceremony's hymns and speeches reflect an evolution of the ritual into a symbol of cultural renewal and conservatism in the South. By 1913, however, the theme of American nationalism shared equal time with the Lost Cause.
Columbus, Mississippi, at its Decoration Day on April 25, 1866, commemorated both the Union and Confederate casualties buried in its cemetery
Fj..are you descended from a McMullen?
No... most of my ancestors were on the Union side of the fight (Ohio), although a few fought w/SC.
The subject of my original "Memorial Day" dedication was the "namesake" and grandson of a Union Sharpshooter, though. ;)
Near Fairfax City, there is a plot of just a few graves. In days past, those graves were decorated with Confederate flags for Decoration Day. Then the Fairfax County head honchos decided the flag shouldn't be used -- racist and all that. But I'm not sure that enforcement occurred as the cemetery is private.
Is there a memorial day for bloggers who are long gone?
Hey Farmer, AOW, Brooke, Z and everyone else!!!
No I'm not returning to blogging. I just dropped by to say hello. Hope everyone is well...
Is there a memorial day for bloggers who are long gone?
If there were, I'd be thinking of ya! I'm well, hope ur2. :)
Well... at my blogger funeral I'll make sure that there is free beer and buffalo wings! That should get ya!!!
I'll be there! :)
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