Clarksville Civil War Roundtable’s next meeting is July 18th, 2012

The 100th meeting with Ed Bearss

Clarksville, TN – The next meeting of the Clarksville (TN) Civil War Roundtable will be on Wednesday, July 18th at the Customs House Museum, 200 South 2nd Street in downtown Clarksville.

The Customs House Museum is our partner for this event and we thank them for their help. This is a special fund raising event for the Clarksville CWRT with the proceeds going to help build the Tennessee monument at the Battle of Richmond, Kentucky.

The Meetings topic is “General George H. Thomas Versus General U.S. Grant – Union Command In The Tennessee Campaign of 1864” [Read more]

Memorial Day History

From the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Washington, D.C. – Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5th, 1868, the head of an organization of Union veterans — the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) — established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared that Decoration Day should be observed on May 30th. It is believed that date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country.

The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. [Read more]

Clarksville Area Memorial Day Events

Written by the Women Veterans of America Chapter 20

Clarksville, TN – Three years after the Civil War ended, Maj. Gen. John A. Logan, head of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans, established May 30th as Decoration Day, a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. It is believed that date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country.

Gen. Logan’s order for his posts to decorate graves in 1868 “with the choicest flowers of springtime” urged: “We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. … Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no 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.”

[Read more]