A Few Years Ago ~

Perhaps you recall November, 2016 when The Art Loft Gallery, Ltd. introduced a new giclee, "Echoes of the Past", by world renowned artist, Patricia Buckley Moss. "Echoes of the Past" features three historic landmarks in Collinsville: The Daniel Dove Collins House, the Civil War Memorial Statue at City Hall, and the Beidler Hotel.

Since our nation is honoring fallen heroes with Memorial Day, it seems appropriate to remember this special print featuring Collinsville's own Civil War Memorial Statue at City Hall.

Some interesting facts about Memorial Day:

As the Civil War neared its end, thousands of Union soldiers, held as prisoners of war, were herded into a series of hastily assembled camps in Charleston, South Carolina. Conditions at one camp, a former racetrack near the city’s Citadel, were so bad that more than 250 prisoners died from disease or exposure, and were buried in a mass grave behind the track’s grandstand. Three weeks after the Confederate surrender, an unusual procession entered the former camp: On May 1, 1865, more than 1,000 recently freed slaves, accompanied by regiments of the U.S. Colored Troops (including the Massachusetts 54th Infantry) and a handful of white Charlestonians, gathered in the camp to consecrate a new, proper burial site for the Union dead. The group sang hymns, gave readings and distributed flowers around the cemetery, which they dedicated to the “Martyrs of the Race Course.”

Official Federal Holiday 1971:

American’s embraced the notion of “Decoration Day” immediately. That first year, more than 27 states held some sort of ceremony, with more than 5,000 people in attendance at a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. By 1890, every former state of the Union had adopted it as an official holiday. But for more than 50 years, the holiday was used to commemorate those killed just in the Civil War, not in any other American conflict. It wasn’t until America’s entry into World War I that the tradition was expanded to include those killed in all wars, and Memorial Day was not officially recognized nationwide until the 1970s, with America deeply embroiled in the Vietnam War.

Excerpts from an article published by The Art Loft Gallery, LTD