Note: The base of this article was written by Amber Shorthouse in 2008. In the intervening years, we have acquired additional materials on the topic. Latest update: Edited broken links, added new links, revised text, and added some new content on 24-29 April 2024 -Grace Cordial
For many Memorial Day is the kick-off to summer fun but its origins lie in a much more solemn tradition. Memorial Day began as Decoration Day, a remembrance of the fallen Union soldiers and sailors of the American Civil War.
Beaufort County residents love to boast that life here is rather unique in many ways. Our local peculiarities are diverse and plentiful: the Spanish New World was administered from Parris Island for a time during the 16th century; we have one of the greatest variations of high and low tide along the Atlantic coast; we established the first school for the newly freed slaves of South Carolina (Penn Normal School on St. Helena Island); and we used local bounty to create the lowcountry's favorite feast, Frogmore Stew. And yet, some things continue to surprise newcomers.
No other South Carolina county experienced the Civil War or its aftermath in quite the same way as it unfolded in Beaufort County. No other South Carolina county contributed such large percentages of its total population to the two warring sides. And therefore, it should come as little surprise that commemoration of those who fought in the Civil War should be different here as well. Since Beaufort County raised troops for both the Confederate States and the United States, the dual remembrances commemorated here are rooted in long tradition as shown in this clipping from the Beaufort Gazette 100 years ago.
The vast majority of Beaufort District's white male residents of the 1860s served with the Confederacy. By tradition in the Palmetto State, graves of the Confederate dead were adorned with flowers on May 10th in remembrance of CSA Gen. Thomas ("Stonewall") Jackson's death on May 10, 1863. Local heritage groups marked the occasion for many years. It was surprising to me to discover that Confederate Memorial Day only became an official state holiday in the year 2000. South Carolina is one of only three states to still observe a Confederate Memorial Day as a state employee holiday.
Many area Black men joined the Union Army's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd South Carolina Volunteer Regiments (AKA 33rd, 34th, and 104th USCT) and the Federal Navy. Some of its most prominent late 19th century, 20th century and 21st century families have ancestors who served in the Union Army, Navy, or who ran businesses that supplied those Federal forces. The Beaufort National Cemetery had been founded in 1863 to provide eternal resting places for those who died while serving the United States.
Many places lay claims to being the first community to honor its Civil War dead beginning as early as 1864 in Waterloo, New York. Waterloo got the official backing of the United States government as Memorial Day’s birthplace during L.B. Johnson’s administration in 1966. “Memorial Day – Over 150 Years of Remembrance” by the National Park Service covers aspects of the holiday’s history and other claimants.
In early May of 1868, General John Logan (USA) in his capacity with the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R., a Union Civil War veterans group) declared its first "Decoration Day" for May 30, 1868. There does not appear to have been any particular significance to Gen. Logan's choice of May 30th for the celebration other than the date’s lack of a significant battle anniversary upon it though some aver that the date was selected simply because flowers would be readily available throughout the reunited United States to adorn the gravesites of the fallen by that date.
On
Decoration Day, the GAR encouraged people to honor the Union Civil War dead by
"strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who
died in defense of their country during the late rebellion."
Beaufort District's Memorial Day Traditions
Locally, May 1868 was especially significant because of the reinterment of Union Prisoners of War (POWs) from the "Racecourse" prison camp near Charleston into the Beaufort National Cemetery and the installation of an obelisk in the Beaufort National Cemetery dedicated to their memory by the widow of a Unionist Charleston merchant, Mrs. Eliza Potter. Local celebrations of the war dead as an annual remembrance are often based from this reinterment.
In addition to some white Union veterans staying behind post-war, Beaufort
County had a high proportion of Black
Union veterans. Black folks from Charleston, Savannah, Augusta, and
neighboring islands would catch the train, oxcart, wagons, or boats and visit
Beaufort for the speeches, music, pageantry and remembrance ceremonies at
the Beaufort National Cemetery. We are quite fortunate to have a number of
diaries that include entries about Decoration Day in Beaufort through the
years.
Here's what Mrs. Ellen Crofut wrote in her diary about Decoration Day in 1890:
Friday, May 30, 1890
Decoration day. Clear and cool.
George went back 5 a.m.
There were crowds of people in town, excursions came by boat and train. Gen’l Stolbrand (1) and his daughter, Gertrude and Mr. Toumey (?) were in and out this morning: a number of people (colored) called to see Mrs. Brayton during the day.
About four o’clock we all went out to the cemetery in our carriage. Mr. Brayton (2) went with Mr. Collins in the procession. We arrived a little before the procession. First came officers from the Baltimore, Kearsarge, Dolphin and Galena, then marines and sailors, lastly the colored soldiers and G.A.R. It was a very pretty sight when they all marched in and took their places. Mr. Brayton spoke one hour.
Mrs. Crofut’s entry description of the day varies greatly in tone than the account published under the title of “A Burlesque at Beaufort” in the Charleston News and Courier on May 31, 1890 which you can find in the BDC’s DECORATION DAY vertical file folder amidst over descriptions and clippings through the years.
The celebration expanded with the influx of Marines training at Parris Island, many of whom were white Northerners with prior experience celebrating Decoration Day though the term “Decoration Day” gradually morphed into the term “Memorial Day,” particularly in the aftermath of the horrors and deaths in the Great War (what we now refer to as World War I).
For some local residents the two terms refer to the same holiday. You’ll see that the entry by Mr. Thomas in 1929 uses the term “Memorial Day” whereas Mr. Christensen uses the term “Decoration Day” in 1943.
W. J. Thomas, Jr., (1906 -1982) wrote about his hometown celebration in the Beaufort Gazette of June 13, 1929:
Ancestral differences were tossed aside with mutual relief and patriotism, and the local white Republicans led the way as all together they arbitrated and decided to celebrate a modified Memorial Day, not for the victory of the North over the South but in remembrance of the reunion of the sister states and the restoration of national harmony.
Thomas Jr.
was the son of William J. Thomas, Sr. and Tennessee Calhoun Thomas. He studied
journalism at the University of South Carolina and at Columbia University in
New York City. During his career, he worked in the news media industry for the New
York Herald Tribune, the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), the Radio
and Television Division of William Espy Co. and for the First Federal Savings
Association of Beaufort.
Frederick Holmes Christensen (1877-1944), a local businessman, often wrote about political, social, and economic life in Beaufort. Here's his commentary about Memorial Day 1943:
Sunday, May 30 [1943]
Decoration day will be celebrated this year tomorrow the 31st. Never the less Helen, Frederik and I went over to the church yard with flowers today and decorated father and Mother's lots. In the afternoon I went to the wharf and witnessed the colored exercises for those lost at sea.
His parents were Niels and Abbie Holmes Christensen whose
graves are located in the family plot located at Lot A-22 of the Baptist Church of Beaufort cemetery.
Niels, an immigrant to the United States from Denmark, had served in the Union Army and later
as the superintendent of the Beaufort National Cemetery. He stayed in the area after
the Civil War to sire a prominent local family with Abbie who are quite
involved in community affairs even now.
As this brief overview indicates, Decoration Day, which originally commemorated the sacrifice of Union troops during the Civil War only, was broadened into a commemoration of the sacrifice of all American soldiers and sailors who died in service to their country during wartime and as a result of military actions.
Memorial Day became a Federal holiday in 1971 when the government set the annual commemoration on the last Monday in May. Congress passed the National Moment of Remembrance Act in 2000. The act designates 3:00 p.m. on Memorial Day as a time for prayer and reflection.
Notes and Sources:
1. Gen'l Stolbrand was Charles John Stolbrand, a Swedish immigrant to Chicago in the 1850s where he became a successful businessman. He organized an artillery company and became its Major in 1862. He led artillery units in the Vicksburg-Chattanooga and Atlanta campaigns before becoming Sherman's head of artillery for his Carolinas Campaign. President Abraham Lincoln promoted Stolbrand to a Brigadier General in January 1865. Find-A-Grave Memorial.
2. Mr. Brayton was Ellery McTeall Brayton who was an independent Republican candidate for the 7th District in the United States House of Representatives in 1890 against William Elliott (Democrat) and Thomas E. Miller (Republican) both of Beaufort. Brayton had served in the South Carolina State House of Representatives for Aiken County in the mid 1870s. William Elliott won on 4 November 1890. Political Graveyard website. Accessed 29 April 2024
U.S. Memorial Day organization, Accessed 29 April 2024
"10 Memorial Day Facts about the History of the Holiday, " by Sophie Caldwell, Today, 25 March 2024. Accessed 29 April 2024
Where Did Memorial Day Originate? (history.com) by Christopher Klein, 16 May 2023, History website. Accessed 29 April 2024
Memorial Day - Over 150 Years of Remembrance by the National Park Service. Accessed 29 April 2024.
Beaufort National Cemetery, Beaufort South Carolina by the National Park Service. Accessed 29 April 2024.
Stonewall Jackson. Britannica. Accessed 29 April 2024.
John A. Logan, Wikipedia. Accessed 29 April 2024.
Grand Army of the Republic, Wikipedia. Accessed 29 April 2024.
"General John A. Logan, Memorial Day Founder," The Army Historical Foundation. Accessed 29 April 2024.
"79. Washington Racetrack, 1792 - 1900", Halsey Map, Preservation Society of Charleston. Accessed 29 April 2024.
"Mrs. Potter's Memorial Monument," Beaufort District Collection Connections blog, 8 December 2022.
"The Origins of Memorial Day" Memorial Day | U.S. Army Center of Military History. Accessed 29 April 2024.
U.S. Dept. of Veteran Affairs, National Cemetery Administration: Memorial Day History. Accessed 29 April 2024.
How to Observe Memorial Day by the Memorial Day Foundation. Accessed 29 April 2024.
BDC Obituary Card Files: W.J. Thomas, Jr.; Frederick Christensen
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