General John A. Logan designated May 30, 1868 as ”a day for strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, or hamlet churchyard in the land…It is the purpose of the commander-in-chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept from year to year while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of the departed.”
John Logan was beginning his second term as a Congressman from southern Illinois when the Civil War broke out. He volunteered, and rose from colonel to major general. He fought in eight major campaigns,and commanded the Union forces at the Battle of Atlanta. He saved Raleigh, North Carolina from being burned by angry Union troops.
After the war, Logan returned to Congress. In the 1870s he was twice elected to the U.S. Senate. In 1884, he ran as Vice President with James G. Blaine.
John A. Logan died at the age of 50 on December 26, 1886, in Washington D.C., where he lies buried in Soldier Cemetery.
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