"Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work."
Carl Sandberg, "Grass," 1918
Decoration Day -- now Memorial Day -- demonstrates the human impulse to recognize, in the face of mortality, the momentary flicker that is life.
We want to believe the dead rest in peace. We want reconciliation and peace ourselves. After the mass death of World War One, Sandburg reflected that emotion. Decoration Day reflects it as well.
Yale historian David Blight describes an incident in Charleston, South Carolina, just as the Civil War was ending. General Lee surrendered at Appomattox on April 9, 1865. Lincoln was assassinated on April 15. Charleston, where the war had begun, was a bombed-out wreck during the spring of 1865. Whites had evacuated the town. Freed Blacks and former slaves lived in the wreckage. A prominent local landmark, the racetrack, had been used as a site for a mass grave of some 300 Union soldiers. Townspeople moved the bodies to individual graves. Schoolchildren brought flowers. Townspeople set up a stage. Fourteen people spoke. It was May 1, 1865. It was probably the first "Decoration Day."
Three years later, on May 5, 1868 the head of a veterans group for the Grand Army of the Republic, Major General John Logan, tried to put regular order onto "Decoration Day" events taking place spontaneously all over America, in both North and South. He said it should be May 30, where flowers are in bloom everywhere.
People were decorating graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers. The spontaneous celebrations portended the short life of the Reconstruction impulse to bring racial equality in America. Majorities in Congress -- led by so-called "Radical Republicans" -- advanced the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments and the Civil Rights Acts, over the objection and vetos of pro-South presidential successor to Lincoln, Andrew Johnson. Wartime bitterness was combined with a desire for reconciliation, reflected in Decoration Day remembrances.
Let it go. Forgive. Stop the fighting. Union and Confederate, all brothers in arms. Rest in peace. Let the grass work.
Sentiment in the North remained anti-slavery, but there wasn't widespread sentiment for equality or integration. Racial prejudice was commonplace. Most Northerners considered the status of Black Americans to be the South's business, with their Black Codes, legal segregation, voter suppression, all-White juries, and a two-class society.
Northern desire for unity, peace, and reconciliation was greater than the desire for racial equality. It took a century for images of injustices in the South, shaming by the USSR in our competition for alliances and alignments, and the inspiration of a charismatic leader, to inspire a new sentiment for change in the face of resistance, resulting in what we call the Civil Rights era.
And, as before, that progress creates its own sentiment for backlash and retreat.
This holiday always makes me so sad, as the daughter of a Vietnam veteran who lost his mind in war, leading to suicide at 47. There's nothing good about war, it destroys homes, lives & countries. I still can't get over people wishing me a "Happy Memorial Day."
Thank you for this, Peter. Much appreciated. Alan