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Carbondale Gathering of "Memorial Day" Creators
This Memorial Day there will be a gathering of decedents of the man who started the holiday.

Descendants of Maj. Gen. John A. Logan will gather at Woodlawn Cemetery in Carbondale , the spot of the first Memorial Day observation in the state and, according to some historians, the first in the nation, in 1866.

It was two years later that Logan would issue General Order No. 11, establishing May 30, 1868 as the first Decoration Day. Logan urged members of the Grand Army of the Republic to decorate the graves of soldiers who died in the Civil War and to continue doing so on the last Monday in May.

In recent years, Woodlawn Cemetery has seen a substantial overhaul to better educate those who visit there. In all, there are 54 Union and Confederate solders buried at Woodlawn.

Carbondale Mayor Brad Cole says gathering Logan's descendents makes for an important history lesson.

There is plenty of debate about the “first” Decoration Day. Some historians place it in Charleston, S.C., while others point to Waterloo, N.Y., Columbus, Miss., Petersburg, Va , and Carbondale.

(Illinois Radio Network)
05 29 10 by Newsroom
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