Contrary to popular opinion, it did not end the war, but it certainly helped accelerate the surrender of other Southern armies once they learned that their beloved leader had been “forced to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources.”
The connection to Appomattox and Memorial Day runs through another observance [that just occurred] before the May holiday. That event is Georgia’s oldest (and still very much observed) official state holiday, Confederate Memorial Day.
Generations of Southerners knew it simply as “Memorial Day.” There was no need to be more specific; everyone knew exactly what it meant. For decades, April 26 was observed with no other activities taking place in communities across many of the former Confederate states. Banks, businesses, and schools would close.
The sincerity of those first Confederate Memorial Days was intense. Started by Southern women in 1866 as a spontaneous demonstration of remembrance of the quarter-million Confederate dead, the event eventually became official in Georgia by law, in 1874. Alabama, Florida, and several other Southern states use that date. Other Southern states observe it on other dates, but the sentiment is the same.
That sincerity was so powerful that a Northern lady, the wife of former Union General John Logan, was so moved that she lobbied her then-Congressman husband to sponsor a law for the creation of a special holiday observance for the Union and other United States soldiers that had died in war. We now know that holiday in May as Memorial Day.
On April 26, at 7 p.m., at the gazebo at Heritage Park in Fayetteville, Confederate Memorial Day [was] observed for the 21st consecutive year by the General Lafayette McLaws Camp #79 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV).
Whether you are a descendant of a Confederate fighting man, or a new citizen recently arrived from some other part of the country, or the world, you are, by your residing here a Southerner, and you owe a moment of your time to remember those that sacrificed their lives on the battlefield defending their homes, and families.
On April 26, [we] remember for just a moment that Fayette County lost 379 of its sons in the Confederate war effort.
One of them was a young man named Windham West. A private soldier in the 53rd Georgia Regiment, West served in Virginia where he died of disease in 1862. His wife Elizabeth may have been comforted by the letter that she received informing her that in his last minutes, Windham repeatedly, and with great emotion, called out her name.
Consider [remembering for] just a moment the men like Windham and so many others who General Lee described as having served with “unsurpassed courage, and fortitude.” You will give honor to the men that made the ultimate sacrifice on a scale that we can never ever understand, and must not forget.
Scott K. Gilbert
Past Commander, Georgia Division
Sons of Confederate Veterans
Senoia, Ga.
