Graveyardbride

Administrator







Posts: 5,578

Administrator Happy Confederate Memorial Day 2020 pat kitty andlike this Quote Select Post

Select Post Deselect Post

Deselect Post Link to Post

Link to Post Member Give Gift

Member Back to Top Post by Graveyardbride on

Confederate Memorial Day



Today is Confederate Memorial Day in Alabama, Florida and Georgia and state offices in Alabama are closed. In the past, Confederate Memorial Day was celebrated April 26 in some states. Now, the aforementioned three celebrate it on the fourth Monday in April and Mississippi the last Monday in April. Accordingly, this year, it is celebrated in all four states Monday, April 27.



In North and South Carolina, the observance is May 10. Arkansas unofficially observes Confederate Memorial Day on January 19, General Robert E. Lee’s birthday. Texas also honors its Confederate dead January 19 on what is called Confederate Heroes Day. Kentucky, Louisiana and Tennessee celebrate those who died defending their homes and families against an invading army on June 3, the birth date of President Jefferson Davis.



Confederate Memorial Day originated in 1866 when the Ladies Memorial Association of Columbus, Georgia, passed a resolution setting aside one day of the year to remember and honor those who gave their lives during the War of Northern Aggression. Afterwards, the secretary of the organization wrote a letter encouraging women’s associations throughout the South to join in what was called Confederate Remembrance Day.



When a group of Mississippi women traveled to Tennessee to lay flowers on the graves of Confederate soldiers who died in the Battle of Shiloh, some among them looked toward the bare, unkempt plots of northern soldiers and the grief-stricken ladies of the South lay wreaths on those graves as well. Later at Arlington National Cemetery, members of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of former Union soldiers, decorated the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers.

When New Yorker and staunch Unionist Francis Miles Finch learned of the magnanimity of the women of Mississippi, he was moved to pen the following poem, which was published in the The Atlantic Monthly:



“The Blue and The Gray”



By the flow of the inland river,

Whence the fleets of iron have fled,

Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver, Asleep are the ranks of the dead: Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgment-day;

Under the one, the Blue,

Under the other, the Gray

These in the robings of glory, Those in the gloom of defeat, All with the battle-blood gory,

In the dusk of eternity meet:

Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgement-day

Under the laurel, the Blue,

Under the willow, the Gray.

From the silence of sorrowful hours

The desolate mourners go,

Lovingly laden with flowers

Alike for the friend and the foe;

Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgement-day;

Under the roses, the Blue,

Under the lilies, the Gray.

So with an equal splendor,

The morning sun-rays fall,

With a touch impartially tender,

On the blossoms blooming for all:

Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgment-day;

Broidered with gold, the Blue,

Mellowed with gold, the Gray.

So, when the summer calleth,

On forest and field of grain,

With an equal murmur falleth

The cooling drip of the rain:

Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgment -day,

Wet with the rain, the Blue

Wet with the rain, the Gray.

Sadly, but not with upbraiding,

The generous deed was done,

In the storm of the years that are fading

No braver battle was won:

Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgment-day;

Under the blossoms, the Blue,

Under the garlands, the Gray

No more shall the war cry sever,

Or the winding rivers be red;

They banish our anger forever

When they laurel the graves of our dead!

Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgment-day,

Love and tears for the Blue,

Tears and love for the Gray.



It’s truly a shame that many today, instead of taking their cue from those who actually lived through four years of war, deprivation and incalculable loss on our own soil, use our cemeteries to foment hatred for men, women and children – all long dead – who did nothing more than defend their homeland.