The origins of Memorial Day

[Darrell]

A year after the war's end, in April, 1866, four women of Columbus gathered together to decorate the graves of the Confederate soldiers. They also felt moved to honor the Union soldiers buried there, and to note the grief of their families, by decorating their graves as well. The story of their gesture of humanity and reconciliation is now told and retold in Mississippi as being the occasion of the original Memorial Day.

A poet and academic from the north, Francis Miles Finch—a Yale graduate and Skull and Bones member, who later became a judge—heard about and was moved by the magnanimous gesture by the women of Columbus. In the same spirit he wrote a tribute to soldiers from both sides, a poem called The Blue and the Gray.



The above excerpt is from "A Real Story of Memorial Day," by Deborah Fallows. Originally published in The Atlantic on May 23, 2014, the link to the complete article is: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/arc...ay/371497/

The complete version of Finch's epic "The Blue and the Gray" may be found at: http://www.civilwarhome.com/blueandgray.html