This movement, started
by individuals--Miss Matt Moreton, Mrs. J.T. Fontaine, and Mrs. Green T.
Hill--was soon taken up by other ladies of the place and resulted in a
determination to make the decoration of soldiers' graves an annual
occurrence.
In an old copy of the "Mississippi Index," published at the time, may be
found an account of the solemn march of the women, young and old, to the
cemetery, on April 25, 1866--one year after Robert E. Lee's
surrender--and of the decoration of the graves not only of Confederate
but of Federal soldiers. It is the proud boast of Columbus that this
occasion constituted the first celebration of the now national
Decoration Day--or, as it is more properly called, Memorial Day.
It should perhaps be said here that Columbus, Georgia, disputes the
claim of Columbus, Mississippi, as to Memorial Day. In the Georgia city
it is contended that the idea of decorating soldiers' graves originated
with Miss Lizzie Rutherford, later Mrs. Roswell Ellis, of that place.
The inscription of Mrs. Ellis' monument in Linwood Cemetery, Columbus,
Georgia, states that the idea of Memorial Day originated with her.
It seems clear, however, that the same idea occurred to women in both
cities simultaneously, and that, while the actual celebration of the day
occurred in Columbus, Mississippi, one day earlier than in Columbus,
Georgia, the ladies of the latter city may have been first in suggesting
that Memorial Day be not a local celebration, but one in which the whole
South should take part.
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