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b'Tribute to Our Fallen: For nearly 150 years, Americans have gathered in late spring to honor the sacrifice of those who have given their lives in service to their country. What began with dozens of informal commemorations of those killed in the Civil War has grown to become one of the nation\\u2019s most solemn and hallowed holidays. From its earliest incarnation as \\u201cDecoration Day\\u201d to its modern-day observances, check out some surprising facts about the history of Memorial Day.
Members of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment place American flags at the graves of U.S. soldiers buried in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery in preparation for Memorial Day May 24, 2012. (Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)
1. Memorial Day and its traditions may have ancient roots.
While the first commemorative Memorial Day events weren\\u2019t held in the United States until the late 19th century, the practice of honoring those who have fallen in battle dates back thousands of years. The ancient Greeks and Romans held annual days of remembrance for loved ones (including soldiers) each year, festooning their graves with flowers and holding public festivals and feasts in their honor. In Athens, public funerals for fallen soldiers were held after each battle, with the remains of the dead on display for public mourning before a funeral procession took them to their internment in the Kerameikos, one of the city\\u2019s most prestigious cemeteries. One of the first known public tributes to war dead was in 431 B.C., when the Athenian general and statesman Pericles delivered a funeral oration praising the sacrifice and valor of those killed in the Peloponnesian War\\u2014a speech that some have compared in tone to Abraham Lincoln\\u2019s Gettysburg Address.


2. One of the earliest commemorations was organized by recently freed slaves.
As the Civil War neared its end, thousands of Union soldiers, held as prisoners of war, were herded into a series of hastily assembled camps in Charleston, South Carolina. Conditions at one camp, a former racetrack near the city\\u2019s Citadel, were so bad that more than 250 prisoners died from disease or exposure, and were buried in a mass grave behind the track\\u2019s grandstand. Three weeks after the Confederate surrender, an unusual procession entered the former camp: On May 1, 1865, more than 1,000 recently freed slaves, accompanied by regiments of the U.S. Colored Troops (including the Massachusetts 54th Infantry) and a handful of white Charlestonians, gathered in the camp to consecrate a new, proper burial site for the Union dead. The group sang hymns, gave readings and distributed flowers around the cemetery, which they dedicated to the \\u201cMartyrs of the Race Course.\\u201d


3. The holiday\\u2019s \\u201cfounder\\u201d had a long and distinguished career.
In May 1868, General John A. Logan, the commander-in-chief of the Union veterans\\u2019 group known as the Grand Army of the Republic, issued a decree that May 30 should become a nationwide day of commemoration for the more than 620,000 soldiers killed in the recently ended Civil War. On Decoration Day, as Logan dubbed it, Americans should lay flowers and decorate the graves of the war dead \\u201cwhose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land.\\u201d According to legend, Logan chose May 30 because it was a rare day that didn\\u2019t fall on the anniversary of a Civil War battle, though some historians believe the date was selected to ensure that flowers across the country would be in full bloom. After the war Logan, who had served as a U.S. congressman before resigning to rejoin the army, returned to his political career, eventually serving in both the House and Senate and was the unsuccessful Republican candida...'