Editing Memorial Day (section)

== Early national history ==
In April 1865, following [[Abraham Lincoln#Assassination|Lincoln's assassination]], commemorations were extensive. The more than 600,000 soldiers of both sides who fought and died in the Civil War meant that burial and memorialization took on new cultural significance. Under the leadership of women during the war, an increasingly formal practice of decorating graves had taken shape. In 1865, the federal government also began creating the [[United States National Cemetery System]] for the Union war dead.<ref name="WaughGallagher2009">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uush7mwletkC&pg=PA187 |title=Wars within a War: Controversy and Conflict over the American Civil War |date=2009 |publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-0-8078-3275-2 |page=187 |author1=Joan Waugh |author2=Gary W. Gallagher |author-link1=Joan Waugh |author-link2=Gary W. Gallagher }}</ref>
[[File:Orphans decorating their fathers' graves in Glenwood Cemetery, Philadelphia, on Decoration Day LCCN2006677411.jpg|thumb|Orphans placing flags at their fathers' graves in [[Glenwood Memorial Gardens|Glenwood Cemetery]] in Philadelphia on Decoration Day]]
By the 1880s, ceremonies were becoming more consistent across geography as the GAR provided handbooks that presented specific procedures, poems, and Bible verses for local post commanders to utilize in planning the local event. Historian Stuart McConnell reports:<ref>{{cite book |first=Stuart |last=McConnell |date=1997 |title=Glorious Contentment: The Grand Army of the Republic, 1865–1900 |page=184 |publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-0807846285 }}</ref>

<blockquote>on the day itself, the post assembled and marched to the local cemetery to decorate the graves of the fallen, an enterprise meticulously organized months in advance to assure that none were missed. Finally came a simple and subdued graveyard service involving prayers, short patriotic speeches, and music ... and at the end perhaps a rifle salute.</blockquote>

=== Confederate Memorial Day ===
{{Main|Confederate Memorial Day}}
[[File:Confederate Memorial at Alabama State Capitol Apr2009.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Confederate Memorial Monument]] in Montgomery, Alabama]]

In 1868, some Southern public figures began adding the label "Confederate" to their commemorations and claimed that Northerners had appropriated the holiday.<ref name="nps.gov">[http://www.nps.gov/ande/historyculture/flowersforjennie.htm National Park Service, "Flowers For Jennie"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240531181242/https://www.nps.gov/ande/learn/historyculture/flowersforjennie.htm |date=May 31, 2024 }} Retrieved February 24, 2015</ref><ref name="Bellware 2014" /><ref name="google1">{{cite book |last=Knight |first=Lucian Lamar |date=1914 |title=Memorial Day: Its True History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0zczAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA156 |via=Google Books |access-date=May 28, 2012 |archive-date=May 31, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240531181242/https://books.google.com/books?id=0zczAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA156#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> The first official celebration of Confederate Memorial Day as a public holiday occurred in 1874, following a proclamation by the Georgia legislature.<ref name="GeorgiaInfo">{{cite news |title=Confederate Memorial Day in Georgia |url=https://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/topics/history/article/civil-war-reconstruction-1861-1877/confederate-memorial-day-in-georgia |newspaper=New Georgia Encyclopedia |publisher=University of Georgia |access-date=January 22, 2019 |archive-date=January 22, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190122195602/https://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/topics/history/article/civil-war-reconstruction-1861-1877/confederate-memorial-day-in-georgia |url-status=live }}</ref> By 1916, ten states celebrated it, on June 3, the birthday of [[Confederate States of America|CSA]] President [[Jefferson Davis]].<ref name="GeorgiaInfo" /> Other states chose late April dates, or May 10, commemorating Davis' capture.<ref name="GeorgiaInfo" />

The [[Ladies' Memorial Association]] played a key role in using Memorial Day rituals to preserve Confederate culture.<ref name="auto1" /> Various dates ranging from April 25 to mid-June were adopted in different Southern states. Across the South, associations were founded, many by women, to establish and care for permanent cemeteries for the Confederate dead, organize commemorative ceremonies, and sponsor appropriate monuments as a permanent way of remembering the Confederate dead. The most important of these was the [[United Daughters of the Confederacy]], which grew throughout the South.<ref name="Center(Firm)2000" /> Changes in the ceremony's hymns and speeches reflect an evolution of the ritual into a symbol of cultural renewal and conservatism in the South. By 1913, [[David Blight]] argues, the theme of American nationalism shared equal time with the Confederate.<ref name="Blight 2001" />{{Rp|265}}