Memorial Day Memories
As initially conceived, Memorial Day commemorates the fallen Civil War dead. After World War 1, it was extended to commemorate those fallen in all of our nation’s wars.
When I was growing up, my grandparents hosted all their seven kids and up to 25 grand children with small flags and a large barbeque. It was a time of celebrating the nation’s history.
My great grand father and his brother, Eugene, fought in the Civil War. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t0ft8fj6k;view=1up;seq=7 They were in the Ohio Calvary, Fourth Regiment and fought in Kentucky and Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia in battles at Chickamauga, Atlanta and Selma and many others. Eugene suffered serious wounds at the Battle of Chickamauga, was captured and died in the Confederate Army’s notorious prison camp for captured prisoners of war in Andersonville, South Carolina. There’s a picture of Eugene at the start of the War in the above referenced history.
As best as I can recall, his pistols, saber and spurs hung on the wall of our grandparent’s home in a special place of honor.
My father recalled and recounted that his grandfather’s Calvary mates gathered at the family home and he remembers their spectral ranks growing ever smaller and more memorable to him as the years passed.
There’s a picture of the 1898 gathering of the 4th Ohio Volunteer Calvary on Labor Day at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t0ft8fj6k;view=1up;seq=7
Prepared by: Lucien Wulsin
Dated: 5/26/19