Memorial Day was first observed as “Decoration Day” on May 30, 1868, in Virginia’s Arlington National Cemetery, three years after the end of the Civil War, though it was initially established on May 5 by the Grand Army of the Republic. John A. Logan , a general in the Union Army, declared a date change so that flowers would be in bloom to decorate the gravesites. The point of Decoration Day was to remember the lives of both the Union and Confederate soldiers lost in the Civil War; as a result, during the first Decoration Day ceremony — attended by the likes of officials like Ulysses S. Grant — flowers were left at the graves of the dead, hymns were sung, and prayers were said.