Because the need was so great, and because so many responded in similar ways, these numerous early ceremonies tend to blur the origins of this now national tradition. So widespread was the impulse to honor the war dead that observances occurred spontaneously in several locations, unbidden by any political or military authority. Most significant among these was the creation of Memorial Day, an annual national holiday urging citizens to decorate the graves of their soldier dead and observe a day of solemn reflection in gratitude and remembrance. The enormity of human pain and death associated with the Civil War, unprecedented in so many ways, inspired equally novel responses.
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