First Memorial Day

Hampton Park was once the Washington Race Course and Jockey Club, but in 1864 it became an outdoor prison for Union soldiers. Before Charleston fell in February 1865, more than 250 prisoners died and were buried in mass graves. After the Confederates evacuated, black ministers and northern missionaries led efforts to reinter the bodies and build a fence around a newly established cemetery, whose entrance bore the inscription "Martyrs of the Racecourse." On May 1, 1865, thousands gathered there for a parade honoring the Union war dead in what marked the earliest celebration of what became known as Memorial Day. African American schoolchildren from newly formed Freedmen's Schools led the procession, followed by church leaders, Freedpeople, Unionists, and members of the 54th Mass., 34th, and 104th U.S. Colored Infantries. The dead were later reinterred in Beaufort.

Charleston, South Carolina · United States