Honoring the Civil War dead

[David Lockmiller]

In May 1865, just after the war ended, a large procession was held in the ruined city of Charleston, S.C. There, thousands of Black Americans, many of whom had been enslaved until the city was liberated just months earlier, commemorated the lives of Union captives buried in a mass grave at a former racecourse. The service was led by some 3,000 schoolchildren carrying roses and singing the Union marching song “John Brown’s Body.” Hundreds of women followed with baskets of flowers, wreaths and crosses, according to historical accounts.

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