http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/article/MEMD22_20090521-221815/269203/

pired Memorial Day, researcher says

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By Katherine Calos

Published: May 22, 2009

If you want to thank someone for the national Memorial Day commemoration, you might start with the Ladies Memorial Association of Petersburg.

Their decoration of Confederate graves at Blandford Cemetery, which began June 9, 1866, inspired a Union general's wife in the spring of 1868 before the first national Decoration Day, on May 30, 1868.

To James H. Ryan of Petersburg, that means Petersburg should get credit for inspiring the national Memorial Day. He has researched the connection and created the Web site MemorialDayOrigin.info to spread the word.

After the Civil War ended, Gen. John A. Logan, husband of Mary Logan, was commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Union Army veterans organization.

When Mary Logan returned from her visit to Petersburg, she described to him the decoration of graves she had seen there.

Soon after, he issued his General Order No. 11 for Union veterans to decorate graves all over the nation on May 30, a date when the whole country would be blooming with flowers.

Mary Logan wrote about the discus sion for the Los Angeles Daily Times in 1903, and Ryan has posted the article on his Web site.

The Petersburg ladies had picked June 9 for their original decoration because it was the anniversary of the 1864 battle that began the 10-month siege of Petersburg, Ryan said. Men and boys -- mostly too old or too young to be in the

Confederate army -- held off the Union army on June 9 until Confederate reinforcements could arrive.

When Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant finally broke through at Petersburg in April 1865, the Confederate government had to abandon Richmond. The Confederacy collapsed a week later with Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

On the anniversary of the battle of men and boys, the Ladies Memorial Association decorated the graves with flags and flowers. In March 1868, when flags from the June 1867 decoration apparently had been supplemented with fresh decorations of early spring flowers, Mary Logan took note.

"The weather was balmy and springlike, and as we passed through the rows of graves I noticed that many of them had been strewn with beautiful blossoms and decorated with small flags of the dead Confederacy," she wrote.

"The actions seemed to me to be a beautiful tribute to the soldier martyrs and grew upon me while I was returning to Washington. . . . As soon as [Gen. Logan] met me at the station I told him of the graves of the Southern soldiers in the cemetery at Petersburg. He listened with great interest and then said: 'What a splendid thought! We will have it done all over the country.'"

As far as Ryan is concerned, Petersburg has an ironclad case for inspiring the national observance.

"Petersburg is not the first city to have a memorial day," Ryan said. "The tradition [of decorating graves] goes back to the Trojans and Persians. There were other cities that did this same thing, probably before Petersburg."

Waterloo, N.Y., where Civil War graves first were decorated in May 1866, has been recognized as the nation's official birthplace of Memorial Day.

"The key thing about our connection to Memorial Day is the logical connection, the chain of events," Ryan said. "We claim to be the source of inspiration and chain of events leading to the national Memorial Day."

Contact Katherine Calos at (804) 649-6433 or kcalos@timesdispatch.c

Interesting article, the South should get the deserved credit.