Remember ‘the cost of a free and undivided republic’— the meaning of Memorial Day

Monday is Memorial Day, a day of remembrance for the more than 1.3 million Americans who gave their lives in military service to our country since 1775.

The holiday has its roots in Decoration Day, a day when Union Civil War veterans honored those who had died in conflict. It was first observed on May 30, 1868, at the direction of  General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. Logan proclaimed the holiday in General Order No. 11: 

“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, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

At least 25 Riverhead men gave their lives in battle or died of wounds sustained in battle during the Civil War, fought from 1861 to 1865. Another 30 were wounded and survived, while eight men were held prisoners, according to “We Will Not Forget: Riverhead’s Civil War Soldiers and Sailors,”  published by Riverhead Town Historian Georgette Lane Case in 2011 to mark the 150th anniversary of the war. 

Sixteen of the Riverhead soldiers and sailors killed in the war are buried in Riverhead Cemetery, where a tall granite monument honoring their heroism stands just inside the cemetery entrance on Pulaski Street in 1871. Their names are engraved in the monument. 

General Logan called on veterans to tenderly cherish “the memory of our heroic dead who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes. Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms.”

The order continued: 

“Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten, as a people, the cost of a free and undivided republic.

“If other eyes grow dull and other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remains in us.”

To this day, on Memorial Day each year, U.S. Military veterans follow the order to, “at the time appointed, gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with choicest flowers of springtime… to raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor…”

They do this in memory not only of those who sacrificed their lives in the Civil War, but also in memory of those who died in every war and armed conflict from that time to the present day. 

In Riverhead, the Combined Veterans Committee leads the local observance of Memorial Day with a parade and five solemn ceremonies at cemeteries and memorial sites around town.

The Memorial Day parade will step off Monday morning at 9 o’clock on Osborn Avenue and Pulaski Street. It will proceed south on Osborn Avenue to the World War I monument on the corner of Court and West Main streets, where ceremonies will be held on the lawn. 

The procession will continue east on Main Street, which is once again lined with “Hometown Heroes” banners honoring Riverhead’s military veterans, to East Avenue, where it will turn north to St. John’s Cemetery, for another wreath-laying ceremony. It will then proceed to Riverhead Cemetery for a ceremony at the Civil War Memorial, after which participants will re-assemble  a short distance to the west for ceremonies at the War Memorial, located at the corner of Pulaski Street and Osborn Avenue, on the lawn of the Pulaski Street School. A concluding ceremony will then take place at St. Isidore’s Cemetery, located on Horton Avenue.

“We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance,” General Logan exhorted his men in 1868. 

“All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders.”

Memorial Day ceremonies will also take place Monday at 1 p.m. at Calverton National Cemetery’s assembly area, located at the end of Princeton Boulevard.