Today is Memorial Day, a time where we honor all the American military personnel that died while in service.
On May 5th, 1868, General John A. Logan issued order number 11, designating May 30th of that year as Decoration Day.
It’s purpose is to decorate the graves of fallen Civil War soldiers with flowers, fabric and flags.
Other communities had also honor soldiers in the same way, but his order helped to establish Memorial Day as we know it.
General John A. Logan Museum Director Mike Jones says the south decorated the graves of fallen soldiers in 1866 and 1867 and in March of 1868 Mary Logan visited a battlefield in Virginia.
“Logan's wife, Mary, saw the remnants of this 1867 observation in the form of withered flowers and faded flags and it touched her heart.”
Jones says the north was resistant to copy what they thought was a rebel holiday until Order 11.
50 years later after WWI, it was changed to a national holiday because the war reunited all the soldiers again.
