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[NASA] An Early “Decoration Day” Celebration

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  3. An Early “Decoration Day”…
 
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Signs of the racetrack where an early “Decoration Day” event was held are still visible in this image captured by the
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(Operational Land Imager) on
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on April 24, 2026.
NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison

The origins of

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lie in the U.S. Civil War, a conflict that led to the deaths of nearly
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. By the waning days of the war, makeshift military cemeteries had sprung up throughout the country, but especially in the South and Mid-Atlantic, where much of the fighting occurred. 

By the time the leader of the veterans’ group

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declared May 30, 1868, as
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—a day for “strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in the defense of their country”—informal memorials and commemorative events were already happening.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs notes that at least

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played a role in the early years of the holiday, including Columbus, Mississippi; Macon, Georgia; Columbus, Georgia; Richmond, Virginia; Boalsburg, Pennsylvania; and Carbondale, Illinois.

One of the earliest and largest ceremonies

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occurred in Charleston, South Carolina. Confederate control of the badly damaged city had ended in February 1865, and Union troops had emancipated thousands of people there. Among the first tasks taken on was ensuring a proper burial for 257 soldiers found in mass graves near a racetrack at the Washington Race Course and Jockey Club, which had been used as a prison camp during the war.

After these soldiers had been re-interred in a new cemetery nearby, a crowd of roughly 10,000 people, including freedmen, missionaries, teachers, and soldiers, assembled at the racetrack and

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on May 1, 1865. The day featured thousands of schoolchildren carrying armloads of roses, women bearing flowers and wreaths, double-time marches by troops, choir performances of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” and ****** recitations by local ministers.

Much has changed in Charleston since the Civil War. The city has been rebuilt, and it has grown from a pre-war population of 40,000 to 160,000 today. Yet signs of the racetrack in what is now

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, where the early memorial event took place, remain visible—even to a sensor orbiting Earth on Landsat 9 (above).

In 1968, the federal government declared Memorial Day an official national holiday with the

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, which moved Decoration Day celebrations from May 30 to the last Monday in May. This act followed a congressional resolution in 1966 that recognized a century of Memorial Day events in
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acknowledging its claim as the “
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” of Memorial Day in honor of a commemorative event held there on May 5, 1866.

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Hampton Park is visible just north of downtown Charleston in this image captured by the
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(Operational Land Imager) on
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on April 24, 2026.
NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison

NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the 

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. Story by Adam Voiland.

Downloads

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April 24, 2026

JPEG (7.07 MB)

References & Resources

  • American Battle Monuments Commission (2014, May 23)
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    . Accessed May 21, 2026.
  • American Battlefield Trust (2012, November 16)
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    . Accessed May 21, 2026.
  • Blight, D. (2015, April 27)
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    . Accessed May 21, 2026.
  • Charleston Area Branch of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (2024, May 23)
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    . Accessed May 21, 2026.
  • The College Today (2017, May 29)
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    Accessed May 21, 2026.
  • The Historical Marker Database (2025, January 12)
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    . Accessed May 21, 2026.
  • History.com (2026, May 4)
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    . Accessed May 21, 2026.
  • National Archives (2018, May 24)
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    . Accessed May 21, 2026.
  • National Archives (2024, May 23)
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    . Accessed May 21, 2026.
  • National Cemetery Administration (2026)
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    . Accessed May 21, 2026.
  • Time (2018, May 25)
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    . Accessed May 21, 2026.
  • U.S. Army Airborne & Special Operations,
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    . Accessed May 21, 2026.
  • U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs,
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    . Accessed May 21, 2026.
  • WCBD News2 (2022, May 29)
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    . Accessed May 21, 2026.

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