Alexandria's Veterans #5 

Decoration Day - Part I V

In 1882, Decoration Day became Memorial Day, but the name did not come into common usage until after World War II.  In 1968, Congress passed a law moving Memorial Day to the last Monday of May, thereby ensuring a three-day weekend.  David Merchant, writing on the history of Memorial Day, had this comment, "Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day.  No doubt, this has contributed a lot to the general public's nonchalant observance of Memorial Day."  Every year, Memorial Day is honored at Maple Grove Cemetery.

The first observance of Decoration Day took place in Alexandria on May 31, 1869.  In the North, the first Decoration Day took place a year earlier and followed a custom that had been observed in the South for several years.  As documented in photographs, young ladies wore white and a service was held to honor our fallen.  Even so, the origins of decorating a soldiers grave goes back to antiquity.  In our case, we have to ask, what did our soldiers die for?

Ostensibly, the Civil War was fought over the rights of States versus the rights of the Federal government.  At heart, though, was slavery.  In my own family, several ancestoral families moved from Kentucky to Indiana and founded the Mariah Creek Baptist Church in repsonse to the growing Anti-Slavery, or Abolitionist, Movement.  My direct ancestor, N.T. Brown, ran on an Abolitionist platform and handily won a seat in the Iowa Legislature... after the Civil War was over!  Closer to home, before signing up as Commander of Company B, 76th OVI, Joseph Scott was a noted Abolitionist.  Since 1833, when England abolished slavery through the Slavery Abolition Act, Abolitionism in the United States had become increasingly popular in the Northern States.  Alexandria is rumored to have been a stop on the Underground Railroad, which gave passage to escaped slaves as they journeyed out of harm's way.  Given the location of Scott's house and the location of a known Underground Railroad stop near New Albany, it is not hard to imagine that Scott himself may have hid former slaves as they sought freedom.  This is, however, unverifiable speculation.

Abraham Lincoln had been elected in 1860 on a platform of banning slavery in the United States.  In February, 1861, seven Southern States left the United States to form a Confederacy.  In March, during his Inaugural Address, Lincoln promised not to pursue a Civil War.  By then, the Confederacy had already begun to militarize, partly in fear of Northern reprisal for succession.

Alexandria would follow the news.  In October, 1861, Special Order 882 authorized Colonel Charles R. Woods to organize a regiment at the newly formed Camp Sherman in Newark.  Recruitment had began as early as September, 1861, so that once the order was issued, most of our soldiers had already signed up for a three year hitch.  Because seven of the ten regiment's companies were from Licking County, the Regiment carried the field name of "The Licking Volunteers."  The regiment departed Camp Sherman with 962 officers and men then went to the Tennessee Valley on February 9, 1862.  Brother-in-laws, First Lieutenant Ira French and Corporal Henry Rose, along with many more, would not return.

The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln was perhaps more important than we might realize.  Lincoln had been for the Abolitionist cause.  He ran on it in 1860.  He signed the Emancipation Proclamation.  He was assassinated by a Confederate radical.

President Lincoln's funeral train stopped in Columbus, having traveled nearby along the Pan Handle Route in southern Licking County from Newark to Columbus.  The train left Cleveland on April 29, 1865 at midnight, traveled at 20 MPH down the B&O route to Newark where it turned onto the Pan Handle Route and traveled to Columbus, arriving at 7:00 AM.  After Lincoln's body lay in state in the Ohio Statehouse, the funeral train then departed for Indianapolis.

This funeral for Abraham Lincoln gave our country a sense of meaning, a sense of depth, and a closure of sorts.  For those who remember the Assassination of President Kennedy or the Attack on the World Trade Center, Lincoln's Death carried at least the same weight.  The Civil War was over.  The community had graves to visit.  On that first Decoration Day in 1869, Reverend Simeon Siegfried, former Commander of Company E, 160th OVI, and pastor of the Alexandria Baptist Church, offered , "O not in vain ye call us forth."