These LaBrier(e)/LaBruyeres Served
During The Civil War
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Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day because it was a time set aside to honor the nation's Civil War dead by decorating their graves. It was first widely observed on May 30,1868, to commemorate the sacrifices of Civil War soldiers, by proclamation of General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of former sailors and soldiers.
On May 5, 1868, Logan declared in General Order No. 11 that "...30th day of May, 1868 designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country..."
****During the American Civil War, Toronto, Montreal, St. Catherines and Halifax welcomed a well-financed network of Confederate spies and adventurers, bringing the war closer to home with organized raids on Lake Erie and the border town of St. Albans, Vermont, where Confederate raiders were successfully defended by prominent Quebec politician J.C. Abbot, a future prime minister. Montreal's St. Lawrence Hall Hotel had so many Confederates living there it offered mint juleps on it's menu. It also afforded visits by John Wilkes Booth, who made several trips there and to Toronto as part of an organized plot leading up to the Good Friday, 1865 assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
Four Union generals were Canadian born, along with 29 Medal of Honor winners. And while most combatants fought for the North, the only monument in Canada to a Civil War veteran sits in Kincardine, Ontario, a tribute to Dr. Solomon Secord, a surgeon with the 20th Georgia Volunteers and the grand nephew of the War of 1812 heroine Laura Secord. Southern sympathies were so prominent in Halifax, where blockade-running created several family fortunes, that some businesses openly flew Confederate flags and traded in Confederate currency.