05/30/2026
Did you know that the idea for Memorial Day may have come from an Ohio veteran?
Born in Milford Center, Ohio, Norton P. Chipman’s family moved to Iowa when he was young where he enlisted in the Union Army's Second Iowa Infantry during the Civil War.
Lieutenant Colonel Chipman fought courageously in battle and was nearly mortally wounded and carried off the battlefield, leading his commanders to report him as dead at the Battle of Fort Donelson. Chipman did, in fact, survive and, upon recovery, was promoted to the rank of colonel in 1862. Chipman and fellow Ohioan Ulysses S. Grant fought together in the Battle of Fort Donelson, which became Grant's first major victory. Chipman later became a member of the Judge Advocate General's staff.
After the war, Chipman moved to Washington, D.C., to work at the War Department under Secretary Edwin M. Stanton. Chipman successfully prosecuted Captain Henry Wirz, the commander of the Confederacy's infamous Andersonville prison camp, where almost 13,000 Union soldiers lost their lives.
Chipman was appointed Secretary of the District of Columbia by President Ulysses S. Grant, and was later elected to Congress as a delegate from the District of Columbia, serving two terms.
While adjutant general of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), Chipman received a note from a friend in Cincinnati. The note suggested that the United States mimic the European custom of decorating graves of people who died while serving in the military. Chipman loved the idea, and he decided the day should be late in the spring, in order to make sure mature flowers were available. Because May 31 fell on a Sunday that year, he declared May 30, 1868, to be Decoration Day, a day to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers from the Civil War. The Associated Press published the order around the country. On that first Decoration Day, General James Garfield (also an Ohioan) made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, and 5,000 participants decorated the graves of the 20,000 Civil War soldiers buried there. Decoration Day later became Memorial Day and an official federal holiday in 1971.
Norton Chipman died on February 1, 1924, at the age of 89.
