I have never bothered to conduct a survey, but I suspect that if you did, less than ten percent of the American population could reliably distinguish between the origins of Memorial Day and Veterans Day, rolled as they have been into one commemorative space. This is not your average American’s fault, really: maybe Memorial Day is a little more exciting, with the guaranteed three-day weekend and day off, but we have not marked them as distinct in any meaningful way for a long time now.
They are, however, quite distinct. Memorial Day is the older of the two, although it was once celebrated primarily on May 30, moving through the week like Veterans Day does. It was also reliably celebrated in only half the country until, at the very least, World War I, and in some places not until the 1990s. When it was known as Decoration Day, Memorial Day was a holiday to honor Union soldiers; states of the former Confederacy, in a rarely successful display of their commitment to states’ rights, selected different dates by state for Confederate Memorial Day. The death of Stonewall Jackson, May 10, was popular; so was the date of the Confederate surrender to William Tecumseh Sherman (April 26). Strangely, given their consummate fixation on defeat, no one selected April 9: the date of the surrender at Appomattox.
Continue reading “In Search of a Usable Past”
Much That Is Fair 