Officially it’s Memorial Day in the US. But it was once Decoration Day.  The origins of this run deep.  The Union troops first celebrated the holiday on May 30, 1868.  But their were ones before that.

April 26,1866 was the first offical celebration of the Civil War dead in the south.  The gravesodd the Confederate troops were decorated with ribbons and buttons.  It was a symbol of homespun touches.  The south want left with much. Most of the people in the south eye fast from rich before the war.

There small marking on Anniversary of major battles were common for both Northern and Southern graves.  This was a war that no one thought would ever come.  It’s a war that started with only a Northern Army and  Northern Navy.   The South were farmers with little industry.   Every able bodied man who wasn’t a plantain owner fought in the South.

The Northern Armies were full of troops that well to do people paid others to take their place.  In the North, a grand horse race track called Saratoga opened in the height of the war.  The Southern people raced to Richmond to riot for bread.  The honor of the fighters for the South was not lost that all but Gettysburg was fought in their homes, their fields, over their crops.

Both sides died in a war to force the country back together. From the beginning when families watch on the side lines outside Alexandria.  To the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.  These men lead to a celebration to honor all those lost in battle under Stars and Stripes