Charleston was in ruins.
The peninsula was nearly deserted, the fine houses empty, the streets littered with the debris of fighting and the ash of fires that had burned out weeks before. The Southern gentility was long gone, their cause lost.
In the weeks after the Civil War ended, it was, some said, "a city of the dead."
On a Monday morning that spring, nearly 10,000 former slaves marched onto the grounds of the old Washington Race Course, where wealthy Charleston planters and socialites had gathered in old times. During the final year of the war, the track had been turned into a prison camp. Hundreds of Union soldiers died there.
For two weeks in April, former slaves had worked to bury the soldiers. Now they would give them a proper funeral. The procession began at 9 a.m. as 2,800 black school children marched by their graves, softly singing "John Brown's Body."
Soon, their voices would give way to the sermons of preachers, then prayer and - later - picnics. It was May 1, 1865, but they called it Decoration Day.
On that day, former Charleston slaves started a tradition that would come to be known as Memorial Day.
Today we celebrate Memorial Day with a trip to the lake, cookouts, an extra day off, and another sale at the mall. Amidst all these distractions, let us not forget to honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, and the families and loved ones who have been left with a void they cannot fill.
