The Augusta Courier

Georgia Cavalcade
By GUS BERND,
Historical Assistant
Office of Secretary of State

A group of patriotic Georgia women, have credit for inaugurating the first Confederate Memorial Day. The first observance of such a Day was in Columbus, Georgia on April 26, 1866. The first services began in a Columbus church and ended in Linnwood Cemetery, with the decoration of the graves of Confederate heroes. The date for Memorial Day seems to have been selected because of its position in the middle of the springtime which is the flowering season in the South and also because it is the anniversary of the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston near Greensboro, North Carolina in 1865.

The surrender of Johnston is significant as the event which for practical purposes ended the War Between the States.

A considerable number of Georgia women figured in the early efforts which led to the official establishment of Confederate Memorial Day. These efforts were centered in Columbus and Muscogee County. Apparently the two women most prominent in the movement were Miss Lizzie Rutherford and Mrs. Charles J. Williams. A long controversy raged over this matter; and numerous statements were made as to the person deserving proper credit for initiating Confederate Memorial Day. During the 1890's it was common occurrence for a Columbus woman to visit a Notary Public and make out a sworn statement on the subject. Out of these claims and counter-claims the thread of history as to the origin of this important observance has been woven; and the above mentioned Columbus ladies appear to deserve most credit for the establishment of April 26 to officially honor the heroes in Gray who died for the Southern cause.

Miss Rutherford appears to have conceived the idea; and Mrs. Williams, who was secretary of the Columbus Memorial Association, drafted the letter which was sent out to publicize the idea. The old Columbus Times was the newspaper in which the famous letter is said to have first been published. The date of the letter was March 12, 1866.

The text of the letter as it appears in re-printed copies is as follows:

"MESSRS. EDITORS: The ladies are now and have been for several days engaged in the sad but pleasant duty of ornamenting and improving that portion of the city cemetery sacred to the memory of our gallant Confederate dead, but we feel it is an unfinished work unless a day be set apart annually for its especial attention.

We cannot raise monumental shafts and inscribe thereon their many deeds of heroism, but we can keep alive the memory of the debt we owe them by dedicating, at least one day in each year, to embellishing their humble graves with flowers. Therefore, we beg the assistance of the press and the ladies throughout the South to aid us in the effort to set apart a certain day to be observed, from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, and be handed down through time as a religious custom of the South, to wreathe the graves of our martyred dead with flowers; and we propose the 26th day of April as the day. Let all alike be remembered, from the heroes of Manassas to those who expired amid the death throes of our hallowed cause.

We'll crown alike the honored resting places of the immortal Jackson in Virginia, Johnson at Shiloh, Cleburne in Tennessee and the host of gallant privates who adorned our ranks. All did their duty, and to all we owe our gratitude.

Let the soldiers' graves for that day at least, be the Southern Mecca, to whose shrine her sorrowing women, like pilgrims, may annually bring their grateful hearts and floral offerings. And when we remember the thousands who were buried 'with their martial cloaks around them,' without Christian ceremony of interment, we would invoke the aid of the most thrilling eloquence throughout the land to inaugurate this custom by delivering, on the appointed day this year, a eulogy on the unburied dead of our glorious Southern army. They died for their country. Whether their country had or had not the right to demand the sacrifice is no longer a question of discussion. We leave that for nations to decide in future. That it was demanded, that they fought nobly, and fell holy sacrifices upon their country's altar, and are entitled to their country's gratitude, none will deny.

"The proud banner under which they rallied in defense of the holiest and noblest cause for which heroes fought, or trusting women prayed, has been furled forever. The country for which they suffered and died has now no name or place among the nations of the earth. Legislative enactment may not be made to do honor to their memories, but the veriest radical that ever traced his genealogy back to the deck of the Mayflower, could not refuse us the simple privilege of paying honor to those who died defending the life, honor and happiness of the Southern women.

The plea of this historic letter was affirmatively answered. The General Assembly of Georgia made April 26 a legal holiday in Georgia; and the idea spread to other Southern States. The observance of Confederate Memorial Day each year is now as familiar a date in the South as that of the observance of Christmas. When the school children march and the Confederate flags are unfurled again, the memory of the Confederate soldiers who nobly died for a cause they loved will once more be deservingly honored because of the determination of those Columbus ladies. And one Confederate veteran of Georgia will still be on hand to partake of the reverence for the principles for which he fought.