On June 4, 2005, the day after President Jefferson Davis' birthday, the John Hunt Morgan Camp, along with members of the Albert Sidney Johnston Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, gathered to celebrate Confederate Memorial Day at the Pewee Valley Cemetery in Pewee Valley, Kentucky. The cemetery is the final resting place of over 300 Confederate Veterans and former residents of the Kentucky Confederate Home.

The featured speaker was JHM Camp Chaplain Rev. Timothy Weddell who gave an inspiring sermon on the sacrifices of the Confederate soldier and how he should be remembered today. Afterwards, the ladies of the UDC, escorted by Past JHM Camp Lt. Commander Clifford Hardin, placed a wreath at the foot of the Confederate Monument. At the close of the ceremony, the JHM Camp color guard fired a solute and Taps was played.

For more information on the Confederate Home, CLICK HERE.
For more information on the Confederate Cemetery, CLICK HERE.
For a list of Confederate Veterans buried in the cemetery, CLICK HERE.

The Origins of Decoration Day or Memorial Day

Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the head of an organization of Union Veterans – the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) – established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Major General John A. Logan declared it should be May 30. It is believed the date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country. The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.

The ceremonies centered on the mourning-draped veranda of the Arlington mansion, once the home of General Robert E. Lee. General and Mrs. Ulysses S. grant and other Washington officials presided. After speeches, children from the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphan Home and members of the GAR made their way through the cemetery, strewing flowers on both Union and Confederate graves, reciting prayers and singing hymns.

Local springtime tributes to the Civil War dead already had been held in various places. One of the first occurred in Columbus, Miss., April 25, 1866, when a group of women visited a cemetery to decorate the graves of Confederate soldiers who had fallen in battle at Shiloh. Nearby were the graves of Union soldiers, neglected because they were the enemy. Disturbed at the sight of bare graves, the women placed some of their flowers on those graves as well. They prayed that women in the North would also decorate the graves of the Confederate loved ones who had fallen in battle and were buried in the North, far away from their homeland.

In 1971, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday by an act of Congress, thought it was still often called Decoration Day. It was then also placed on the last Monday in May as the day for observance.