Did You Know About Confederate Memorial Day?

Did you know according to an article in The April 1992 edition of the Alabama Confederate Magazine,  that Confederate Memorial Day was the inspiration for the current National Memorial Day?

The article says that In March of 1868, Mrs. Logan, wife of US Congressman John A. Logan of Illinois and a former Union General, while on a visit to Petersburg Virginia, was deeply touched by the observation of Confederate Memorial Day.

Mrs. Logan prevailed upon her husband to develop a similar observation for the Union dead. May 30 was thus designated as a day for the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans to remember the Union dead. The idea was well accepted and in 1871 Logan, now a US Senator introduced a bill to make it a national holiday called Memorial Day.

After World War I, the holiday was expanded to recognize the dead of all American wars. In 1971 the date of the holiday was changed to the last Monday in May.

 We go to the cemeteries on Confederate Memorial Day, as people in our state and throughout the south have done for well over one hundred spring-times. We come to remember and to praise and to strew flowers above the dust of heroes.

Here in Alabama Confederate Memorial Day is celebrated the fourth Monday in April. It is a State Holiday and guess what??? - The First White House of the Confederacy is closed on State Holidays!!!