The strewing of flowers upon graves is old in some countries. It is said that the first decoration of graves of soldiers of the Civil War was done on April 13, 1862, by two little girls, daughters of a Michigan chaplain. They had been out gathering wild flowers, and, returning, came across a rough, unmarked mound which covered some northern boy.
One of the girls said: "Oh, let's put our flowers on this grave! He was a soldier boy." They knelt down and made garlands of flowers on that grave. This grave was in Virginia, not far from Mount Vernon. The next day they interested their family and friends in a plan to decorate all the graves, and the plan was carried out. Each year afterward, in May, they did the same wherever they happened to be. Others saw them and followed their example.
The later date of May 30 was chosen by General Logan so that flowers could be had in all the northern states.
From decorating the graves of soldiers the custom has extended to the graves of all who have relatives or friends to remember them. In time the soldiers will be forgotten, but the custom of decorating graves with flowers will doubtless continue for many generations to come. The spirit which prompts it is a noble one, which should ever be cherished.
Two years after the close of the Civil War the _New York Tribune_ printed a paragraph simply stating that "the women of Columbus, Mississippi, have shown themselves impartial in their offerings made to the memory of the dead. They strewed flowers alike on the graves of the Confederate and of the National soldiers."
Whereupon the North thrilled with tenderness and Francis Miles Finch was inspired to write his moving lyric "The Blue and the Gray," which has become the credo of the Festival.
In a famous address, Chauncey M. Depew related the occurrence with felicity: "When the war was over in the South, where under warmer skies and with more poetic temperaments symbols and emblems are better understood than in the practical North, the widows, mothers, and the children of the Confederate dead went out and strewed their graves with flowers; at many places the women scattered them impartially also over the unknown and unmarked resting-places of the Union soldiers. As the news of this touching tribute flashed over the North it roused, as nothing else could have done, national amity and love and allayed sectional animosity and passion. Thus out of sorrows common alike to North and South comes this beautiful custom."