THE FIRST "DECORATION DAY"
It was in May of this year 1866 that we inaugurated, in Petersburg, the
custom, now universal, of decorating the graves of those who fell in
the Civil War. Our intention was simply to lay a token of our gratitude
and affection upon the graves of the brave citizens who fell June 9,
1864, in defence of Petersburg, and upon the graves of her sons who
perished in the assault upon Fort Steadman. These were buried in the
cemetery of the old Blandford Church, then a roofless, ivy-clad ruin.
The church is one of the historic structures of the South, and it has
a literature of its own among Virginians. One of the most striking of
the poems concerning it was the following, found written with a pencil
on the inner walls of the church many years ago. The author is unknown,
but Tyrone Power, the Irish comedian, is generally supposed to have been
the writer:—
"Thou art crumbling to the dust, old pile!
Thou art hastening to thy fall;
And 'round thee in thy loneliness
Clings the ivy to the wall;
The worshippers are scattered now,
Who knelt before thy shrine,
And silence reigns where anthems rose
In days of 'auld lang syne.'
"And sadly sighs the wandering wind
Where oft in years gone by
Prayer rose from many hearts to Him,
The Highest of the High.
The tread of many a noiseless foot
That sought thy aisles is o'er,
And many a weary heart that beat
Is stilled forever more.
"How doth ambition's hope take wing!
How droops the spirit now!
We hear the distant city's din;
The dead are mute below.
The sun that shone upon their path
Now gilds their lowly graves,
The zephyr which once fanned their brows
The grass above them waves.
"Oh! could we call the many back
Who've gathered here in vain,—
Who've careless roved where we do now,
Who'll never meet again;
How would our very hearts be stirred
To meet the earnest gaze
Of the lovely and the beautiful—
The lights of other days!"
When a sentiment and observance sweeps the country we naturally wonder
who began it. Where was the spark kindled that fired the train? Who was
the "founder"—that is, the originator, the one from whom the movement
derived its beginning?
Memorial associations were organized in several places soon after the
close of the war, but the first observance of a "Decoration Day" was
an inspiration of Mrs. Judge Joynes of Petersburg, Virginia. She called
the women of Petersburg together on the 9th of May, 1866, and organized
them into a memorial association for the express purpose of decorating
the graves of the men who had fallen in the late conflict between the
North and the South. She was made President of the association, and Mrs.
Samuel B. Paul, Vice-President. The following preamble was offered by
Mrs. Joynes and accepted by the meeting:—
"Whereas, a mysterious Providence has given us a duty which would, under
other results, have been a nation's pride to perform, we, the ladies of
Petersburg, now assume our share of the melancholy yet grateful task
of doing honor to the remains of her noble sons. All along our lines,
on distant hilltops, in valleys, in forests, lie the neglected graves
of the slain of our people. Absent from our homes and our altars, they
sleep the last sleep of the noble and the brave. Their bodies, bone of
our bone, flesh of our flesh, arise, a spectre band before us, demanding
Christian and honorable sepulture. Untrue would we be to the instincts
of nature, as well as our birthright of glory, untrue to the land of
Washington and of Lee, did we not give every energy to this work. Now
that the storms of war have been hushed for us, and the paralysis of our
crushed hopes is yielding to a healthy activity and responsibility, we
come together to devise means to perpetuate our gratitude and admiration
for those who died for us. We, therefore, form ourselves into a society
for the systematic furtherance of this object, inviting the coöperation
of all that sympathize with us, so that here, where the last blow was
struck, an enduring monument may arise as a tribute to true manhood and
patriotic devotion.
"We, therefore, propose," etc. In the resolutions that followed, June 9
was named as the day for "perpetual remembrance." Just what was to be
done on that day was not made public. The Federal Army was still with
us, and some apprehension was felt that we might be hindered in our
wishes. Nothing was yet quite settled or clearly understood in relation
to our future. We were under military rule, and realized the necessity
of discreet behavior. Mrs. Joynes quietly circulated notes among us,
requesting us to meet at Blandford Church on the afternoon of June 9,
"to be sure of enough voices for an anthem." It was whispered that "many
flowers were desired." When the day came, everybody rose early, to cut
these flowers with the dew on them—otherwise they would perish in the
hot summer day.
Over the trellised porch of the house I had occupied during the siege of
Petersburg there was still the fine specimen of the microphylla rose—a
grand climbing rose to whose bounty my little girls had been indebted,
during the blockade, for the only adornment of the home-plaited hats.
This rose had, as we have seen, already yielded its tribute to heroism.
Its globes of snow had lain upon the breast of more than one dead
soldier. To-day it gave up all its wealth for the hands of my little
children and my own. The day was perfect. One could but recall that
other perfect day when so many of the old men and boys had fallen in the
defence of the town. The flowering trees,—chestnut, locust, and peerless
_magnolia grandiflora_ were again in blossom. The city again lay under
a cloud of white. In all the town, lately one of the wealthiest of the
South, only two or three carriages could be found. These led the way,
filled with flowers. Young girls followed, clad in white and bearing
garlands of flowers—a long double line. Then came every child from every
school. All bore baskets and clusters of flowers. Some had covered large
pasteboard letters with white roses, combining them afterward to form
the tender words of "Brother" or "Father." The women and children were
followed by a band playing Beethoven's immortal march upon the death of
a hero. Military companies and a great crowd of reverent strangers made
up the rear.
The day at one o'clock, when the procession started, was intensely
hot, and the distance to be traversed along a dusty road more than a
mile. Upon reaching the cemetery of the old Blandford Church a prayer
was offered, followed by orations, at two graves—one filled with the
bones of men who had perished at Fort Steadman, the other the grave of
Colonel Scott, who fell at Richmond during the seven days' fight. Then
the women and children hastened to cover with flowers the great number
of unmarked graves. Many little white flags had been prepared for these
graves. On these the words "Somebody's darling" was printed. I remember
Miss Joynes's delicate beauty as she filled her arms with these little
banners and ran from one lonely hillock to another to plant them. We
then gathered together in the historic church, roofless then, and in a
most picturesque phase of decay. But the anthem written by Mrs. Morrison
was deemed too passionate for the hour. We wished to do nothing that
might be construed amiss. The Federal soldiers were all around us,
looking on respectfully; so we raised our eyes to heaven through the
old ivy-clad walls and sang to the good old church tune:—
"Guide us, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrims in a stricken land."
When all was over the sorrowful women and children returned mournfully
to their homes. The shops of the city were closed, the streets hushed.
Thus passed the first organized observance of Decoration Day. It has
been observed in a similar manner on some selected day in every State
in the Union, but in Petersburg it will ever be on the 9th of June, her
one saddest, greatest day of the war, that her daughters will cover with
flowers the graves of her martyred sons.
I think well of my country that it should recognize them as martyrs.
We do well to pause one summer day in a year to exalt their courage,
to bewail their fate, to cover their humble hillocks with flowers.
They died, not to protect our land from the profane foot of the foreign
invader, nor yet to win the Holy Sepulchre from the infidel, nor yet to
conquer a savage wilderness for the great incoming flood of our race.
They died because their country could devise, in its wisdom, no better
means of settling a family quarrel than by slaying her sons with the
sword.
May this country never forget to observe Memorial Day! Even now there is
scarcely a hamlet in the United States that does not display a tiny flag
or bit of bunting on Decoration Day. Some years ago I drove through a
wild mountain country in West Virginia. Deep down in a narrow gorge—one
of those strange fissures where a small stream has cut a mountain in
twain—I discovered a wretched hut. Fastened to a pole at the door was a
fluttering bit of red flannel. The half-naked savages who lived in this
hut scrambled up the precipice to beg. I asked the meaning of the red
rag, and received the surprised answer, "Decoration Day!" These untamed,
untamable people respected the day.
[Illustration: OLD BLANDFORD CHURCH, PETERSBURG, VA.]
The old Blandford Church is still an object of interest to all who
visit the historic sites around Petersburg. When the solemn chant of the
first Memorial, or Decoration Day, service echoed through its mouldering
walls, they, with a remnant of the roof, were embedded in the emerald
ivy brought from Kenilworth, and were literally vocal with hundreds
of tuneful birds. It has been found necessary to repair the roof,
but enough ivy remains to cover it in a few years. Meanwhile the old
church sits desolate among the graves of her distinguished and honored
sons—indeed a _Mater Dolorosa_:—
"Childless and crownless
In her voiceless woe
An empty urn within her withered hands,
Whose holy dust was scattered long ago."
And there she watches "until the day dawn and the shadows flee away."