I'm David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States. Across the street from the National
Archives Building in Washington, DC, stands a monument to the Grand Army of the Republic,
the GAR, the most important American veterans organization of the 19th century. Memorial Day
owes its origins to the GAR. In the presentation to follow, archivist Rod Ross will share Memorial
Day memories from his childhood and from his early career with what is now the National
Archives and Records Administration. Of the millions of pages of Federal records held
by the National Archives, Rod has chosen to highlight a single page from
the compiled service record of a Union Civil War soldier.
I grew up in the 1950s in the town of Batavia, Illinois,
a town of 6,000, forty miles to the west of Chicago. In Batavia, Memorial Day was
a big deal. The day began with a parade from the town's center to one of the two cemeteries.
At the cemetery, the service always included a reading of GAR General Order 11,
an 1868 proclamation by the organization's commander, John A. Logan. Oddly, no mention
was ever made of the Civil War monument in Batavia's West Side Cemetery.
Now, I joined the staff of the National Archives in 1977 and the following year I returned to
Batavia as a Memorial Day speaker. My talk was on 52 Batavians who joined Company B of the 124th
Illinois Volunteer Regiment in September 1862. For that talk, I did research at the National
Archives using Civil War military records. Now, by the end of the Civil War, ten of the
52 men were dead. Killed during the siege of Vicksburg on June 8, 1863, was 31-year-old
Private Oscar F. Cooley. Less than a month later, General Grant's forces captured
that Confederate citadel. Cooley's name, and the names of other Batavians who fought
in the Civil War for the Union are inscribed on the base of the Batavia's Civil War monument.
Five years after Private Cooley's death, John A. Logan issued General Order 11. I close
in quoting four sentences from that Grand Army of the Republic General Order, for this
is why we have Memorial Day. The 30th day of May is designated for the purpose of strewing
with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country
during the late rebellion. Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains
and their deaths a tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves
with sacred vigilance. Let no vandalism or avarice or neglect, no ravages of time,
testify to the present or to coming generations that we as a people have forgotten
the cost of a free and undivided republic.
(music)
Who shall rule this American nation? Say, boys, say!
Who shall sit in the loftiest station? Say, boys, say!
Shall the men who trampled on the banner? They who now their country would betray?
They who murder the innocent freedmen? Say, boys, say!
No never! No, never! The loyal millions say.
And 'tis they who rule this American nation, they, boys, they!