Back | Up | Next

Conversations in Management

Francis Miles Finch

From the silence of sorrowful hours

The desolate mourners go,

Lovingly laden with flowers

Alike for the friend and the foe:

Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgment-day;

Under the roses, the Blue,

Under the lilies, the Gray.

On April 25, 1866, a women’s memorial association in Columbus, Mississippi decorated the graves of both Confederate and Union soldiers. It was an act of kindness and remembrance that would capture the imagination of the entire country. The simple gesture suggested a common ground for reconciliation between people exhausted by the devastation of war. It was recognition that both sides were bound by a common humanity that transcended political and social strife. It represented hope for a better future.

Francis Miles Finch was so moved by the women’s generous act that he wrote a poem in response (the third stanza appears above). The poem, published in The Atlantic Monthly, was the Blue and the Gray. It was enormously popular and its public reading was a staple of Decoration Day commemorations for decades.

In turn, the poem contributed to General John Logan’s publication of General Order No. 11, which designated May 30, 1868, “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 church-yard in the land.” Logan was then Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR); a fraternal organization of Union veterans. The GAR implemented Logan’s order by decorating the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers in Arlington National Cemetery that day.

Sadly, reconciliation was a hope not easily realized and it wasn’t until after World War I—when Memorial Day was expanded to include all war dead—that every state finally recognized the day. But despite the divisive issues that continued to separate the country, the twin impulses of reconciliation and remembrance remained active. And they furthered the slow process of healing.

Now the issues are different, but the need for reconciliation and remembrance is just as strong. In our frenetic world it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that as a people, we have more in common than not. We treat fissures between us like chasms and are too quick to claim irreconcilable differences. Part of the problem is that we live so much in the present that we don’t do a good job of remembering our past. But it’s in the act of remembering that we’ll discover the context of today. And remembering—with gratitude—those who have made the ultimate sacrifice will keep us humble the next time we feel like complaining about our lot in life.

Today there are fresh graves across America. They’re easy to overlook. But let’s find them this Memorial Day and remember these brave men and women—and all who have gone before them—with grateful hearts and in a spirit of unity.

—Ebert