Logan apparently chose May 30 because flowers would be in bloom all over the country. “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land…” Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic (an organization of Union veterans) would eventually select May 30, 1868, as a day to pay tribute to the fallen: Over 620,000 soldiers died in the four-year conflict. Grant at the Appomattox Court House on April 9. Lee surrendered the last major Confederate army to Ulysses S.
The Civil War ended in the spring of 1865 when Robert E.
