Chuck Grassley: “after the bloodiest war in U.S. history, an enlisted soldier in the Union Army was assigned to recover war dead from…”

“after the bloodiest war in U.S. history, an enlisted soldier in the Union Army was assigned to recover war dead from Southern battlefields. Brevet Lt.-Col. Edmund B. Whitman mapped out an intricate system of ``cemeterial districts'' that formed the framework for our system of National Cemeteries. They provide a final resting place for fallen heroes and sacred space for mourners and citizenry to honor those who gave their last full measure of devotion to preserve freedom and liberty for generations to come. ``That Nation which respects and honors its dead, shall ever be respected and honored itself.''--Brevet Lt.-Col. Edmund B. Whitman, 1868 After the Civil War, it became popular to place flowers near gravesites to honor the fallen. So-called ``decoration days'' in springtime came to be called Memorial Day. A Union General issued General Orders No. 11 urging the Nation not to forget the human toll of war. ``Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.''--General John A. Logan, May 5, 1868”