How Long Beach Celebrated Decoration Day

As the drawing from a 1900s newspaper shows, in the earliest days of Long Beach, Civil War veterans and their families would line up for a parade, that marched from the corner of Fifth Street and Pine Avenue to the Pine Avenue Pier. There they would throw hundreds of roses, carnations and calla lilies were thrown on the waters into the ocean in memory of those who had given their lives for their country.

After the flowers were dropped, the crowds would travel to both the city’s cemetery and Sunnyside cemetery on Willow Street and Orange Avenue, and to graves in Wilmington, where they would decorate each veteran’s grave with flowers and flags and listen to patriotic speeches.

An estimated 1,200 Civil War veteran graves are in Long Beach, including the graves of Nelson Ward, who was awarded a Medal of Honor for his bravery and Abraham Cleage, a former slave who served in the United States Colored Troops Heavy Artillery Unit, and died working as a janitor in city hall.

There is a historical debate about the origins of what started as Decoration and then later became Memorial Day. One story details how freed slaves in Charleston, South Carolina uncovered a mass grave containing 257 Union soldiers and took several weeks to rebury each one. The burials were followed by a parade and celebration in honor of those who had fought for the slaves’ freedom.

The other, more formalized story, tells of Major John Logan, the leader of the Union Army veterans organization, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), issuing General Order No. 11 on May 5, 1868, designating May 30th National Decoration Day “... for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of the comrades who died in defense of their country in the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land.” May 30th was selected because most of the country “was blooming with flowers.”

Logan, who was Commander in Chief of GAR, actually got the idea from his wife, Mary, who while visiting Petersburg, Virginia had noticed that Southerners were decorating the graves of their fallen soldiers with flowers and flags. Not to be outdone by Confederates, Logan ordered that National Decoration Day would be the priority of GAR members in each of their communities.

Long Beach claimed the largest number of GAR members under Post 181. Its members and families organized Decoration Day or Memorial Day as the two names were used interchangeably for many years.

Long Beach GAR lobbied for special markers and designated space in the local cemeteries. Local officials initially resisted but eventually allowed the use of government issued headstones. There are a number of Civil War military headstones scattered throughout the Municipal Cemetery. A special section of the Sunnyside Cemetery was set aside specifically for Civil War veterans. In December 1935, members of the Lawton Camp No. 10, Sons of Union Veterans and the Anna Etheridge Tent No. 58, Daughters of Union Veterans, dedicated a flag standard and bronze plaques at Sunnyside Cemetery to mark this special section.

The cemeteries contain the graves of both Union and Confederate veterans. Long Beach was one of the few cities that had a “Blue and Gray GAR Drum Corps” and gave out “Johnny and Yank” pins to its members.

In 1911, the city expanded the ceremony to include a stop in Pacific Park where veterans were given flowers by school children and invited to march to the pier where the flowers would be thrown out to sea. The park became a natural site in 1915 for the large statue of Abraham Lincoln funded by contributions from GAR members. Later the park was renamed Lincoln Park.

After World War I, Memorial Day was expanded to honor all who died in military service. Since 1971, Memorial Day is now celebrated as a federal holiday on the last Monday in May. 

gerrie@beachcomber.news