Memorial Day was born out of our nation’s most fractured and pivotal moment: the CivilWar.
Battered and worn after four years of internal strife, America nonetheless emerged intact in 1865, the dream of the Union preserved.The price of preserving our nation, our ideals, and our freedoms was approximately 620,000 American lives — nearly a quarter of a million more souls than our nation would give 80 years later to liberate Europe and defeat the Empire of Japan.
In the aftermath of such extreme loss, bereaved families everywhere mourned fathers and sons.To help the nation heal, and to memorialize our permanent triumph forged by their sacrifice, in 1868 Major General John A. Logan proclaimed a national observance of what Americans then called Decoration Day.
