• • First Official National Decoration Day May 30, 1868 The following is the beginning of the speech given by General James A. Garfield in Arlington Cemetery for the first National Decoration Day. I am oppressed with a sense of the impropriety of uttering works on this occasion. If silence is ever golden, it must be here beside the graves of fifteen thousand men, whose lives were more significant than speech, and whose death was a poem, the music of which can never be sung. James A. Garfield enlisted as a lieutenant colonel in the Union Army With words we make promises, in 1861, and retired in 1863 as a plight faith, praise virtue. Promises Major General. (loc.gov) may not be kept; plighted faith may be broken; and vaunted virtue be Card from 1908. First Military Burial in Arlington (usmemorialday.org) Cemetery: May 13th, 1864 only the cunning mask of vice. We do not know one promise these men Private William Henry Christman made, one pledge they gave, one History of Decoration Day Decoration Day dates back to the enlisted on March 25, 1864 at the word they spoke; but we do know 1860s, when local groups from the age of 20. Two years earlier, his they summed up and perfected, by North and South would lay flowers older brother, Barnabus, died in one supreme act, the highest virtues on the graves of the Civil War battle at the age of 20. Pvt. of men and citizens. For love of soldiers that fell in battle. The Grand Christman served with Company G, country they accepted death, and Army of the Republic (GAR), an 67th Regiment Pennsylvania thus resolved all doubts, and made organization of Union veterans, Volunteers. On April 30, Pvt. immortal their patriotism and their officially established Decoration Day Christman was admitted to Lincoln virtue. For the noblest man that lives, in 1868. General Hospital, having fallen ill there still remains a conflict. He with measles eight days before. He must still withstand the assaults of The name Memorial Day would be passed away on May 11, 1864. time and fortune, must still be used with or in place of Decoration assailed with temptations, before Day over the next few decades, and The first of many burials on May which lofty natures have fallen; but after World War I, the day came to 13th, Pvt. Christman was laid to rest with these the conflict ended, the honor veterans from all wars, not in Arlington Burial Ground, in what victory was won, when death only the Civil War. In 1971, is today Section 27. A month later, stamped on them the great seal of Congress declared Memorial Day to Maj. Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs heroic character, and closed a record be a national holiday, to be observed appropriated 200 acres officially for which years can never blot. the last Monday in May. Arlington National Cemetery.

Authors in the Garfield Library What would Garfield be reading about in the news this month?

May 24, 1844: Samuel Morse sends the first telegraph message May 13, 1846: President Polk and Congress declare war on Mexico May 20, 1862: President Lincoln signs the Homestead Act May 10, 1865: Confederate President Jefferson Davis is captured May 10, 1869: The Transcontinental Railroad is completed May 17, 1875: The first Kentucky Derby horse race takes place May 21, 1881: Clara Barton starts This print of Ralph Waldo This print is found inside Fuller’s the American Red Cross Emerson hangs in the Memorial book: Woman in the Nineteenth Library. Garfield’s copies of Century. The image is a print of a Emerson’s works can be found daguerreotype taken of Margaret in the Memorial Library. Fuller in 1846.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Margaret Fuller born May 25th, 1803 born May 23rd, 1810 Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1810- a poet, orator, philosopher, and writer, 1850) was a writer, journalist, literary part of the Transcendentalist movement critic, women’s rights advocate, and in the 19th century. activist part of the Transcendentalist Garfield listened to an address movement. Emerson gave during the summer of Margaret Fuller, as she was known, 1854 in Williamstown, Massachusetts. wrote one of the important early feminist He wrote about Emerson after hearing documents of the 19th century: Woman him speak that summer day: “...I must in the Nineteenth Century. Her book was say he is the most published in 1845; as a startling original thinker I Emerson and Fuller worked continuation of an essay James A. Garfield and daughter Mollie ever heard...I could not together as editors for the published in The Dial in ca. 1870s (loc.gov) sleep that night after literary and philosophical 1843 titled “The Great hearing his thunder-storm journal The Dial, and were Lawsuit. Man versus of eloquent thoughts. close friends throughout Men, Woman versus It made me feel so small their lives. Women.” Her essay, and and insignificant to hear later book, focused on him”. Garfield said in later years that his gender equality and individualism; ideas intellectual life began as he listened to that came from the earlier women’s Emerson’s address. rights authors and the transcendentalism Many of Emerson’s works are part of movement. Garfield’s extensive book collection at Lucretia Garfield read Woman in the James A Garfield National Historic Site. Nineteenth Century while she was a These books include: Essays: First student. The copy in the Memorial Series, Essays: Second Series, Nature; Library has Lucretia’s signature inside Addresses and Lectures, Society and the front cover. James A. Garfield read Solitude, and Works of Ralph Waldo Fuller’s works when writing a memorial Emerson (Five volumes). for his close friend, Almeda Booth.