5 June 2013
“When was the first day of remembrance of any kind
celebrated in Canada?”
If you could get people even to answer the question, the
likely answer would be, November 11th, 1919; the first anniversary
of the armistice which concluded the fighting of the First World War. It was then called Armistice Day.
Though a good answer, it would be wrong. The first time a day of remembrance was
observed in Canada was on May 30th, 1890, and it was for Canadian
veterans of the American Civil War. It
is still observed in a small way today.
Over 40,000 Canadians are believed to have volunteered south
of the border for the conflict, which raged from 1861 to 1865 and saw the
deaths of some 600,000 men. That
staggering number was suffered by a country of only thirty million in
population, the size of Canada today. That
casualty figure has yet to be exceeded by all the other wars that the United
States has fought, before and since, combined.
In the 1890’s when one spoke of “the war,” the Civil War was the one
meant.
Many Canadians volunteered to fight south of the border, in
part because of the cause, the ending of slavery. The adventure of it all drew many others. But Canada was suffering an economic
depression at the time, and American recruiters were offering a $100.00 bounty
to sign up. Aggressive recruiters for
the Union even tried to get British soldiers stationed in Canada to desert. The result was a large number of war veterans
who lived in Canada.
The Grand Army of the Republic, the fraternal organization
of Union veterans of the Civil War, in 1868 established “Decoration Day,” as
May 30th, a day on which flowers would be placed on the gravesites
of Civil War casualties. The name was
later changed to “Memorial Day.”
A GAR Post, named after William Winer Cooke (of whom more
later), was established in Hamilton in 1889 through the auspices of the U.S.
Consul, Colonel Monahan, and the practice of holding a ceremony of honor at the
gravesites of deceased Civil War veterans was begun the next year in Canada
under the direction of Vice-Consul Colonel Richard Butler. The Cooke Post continued the practice into
the 1930s, when the last of its membership died. The records of the Cooke Post were lost and
the location of the specific gravesites were, in many cases, forgotten.
Interest in the location of the gravesites of Civil War
veterans was revived through the activity of local historian Robin McKee. McKee gave tours of the Hamilton Cemetery
based upon certain themes, and one theme was of notable war veterans buried in
the cemetery. A veteran of note was
William Winer Cooke.
Cooke was a veteran of the Civil War. During the war, he happened to meet and
befriend one General George Armstrong Custer.
Such good friends were they that Custer, on December 28th,
1869, arrived in Hamilton to visit with Cooke’s family for several days. Cook later served in Custer’s 7th
U.S. Cavalry, and was killed with Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn
in 1876. Cooke’s mother arranged to have
her son’s remains disinterred from his burial site at the Little Big Horn
battlefield, and reinterred at the family plot in Hamilton cemetery. Because of his death with Custer, Cooke was
the most prominent veteran of the Civil War from Hamilton, and the new GAR Post
in Hamilton was named after him.
One of Robin McKee’s tour guests, an old gentlemen, happened
to be the son of one of the veterans of the old GAR post, and got McKee started
on mapping out the location of many more Civil War veterans. Eventually, Civil War veterans became the
theme of one of McKee’s tours.
The GAR was noteworthy for its endorsement of equal
treatment for black veterans at a time when racial prejudice was strong in
America. McKee is most proud of having
discovered the location, and of having a proper Civil War headstone from the
United States government placed upon, the grave of Nelson Stevens, a veteran of
the 25th United States Colored Troops. Stevens was an escaped slaved who found
refuge in Canada, and who returned to fight for the freedom of his race. He faced instant execution if he were
captured by Southern troops. Stevens
returned to Canada, and died in poverty.
His grave was unmarked. McKee
knew of Stevens, and with a lot of detective work as well as the aid of ground
penetrating radar, he located his remains.
A proper stone now marks the spot.
McKee’s tours attracted the attention of American Legion
Post 18, based in Burlington ON. The
members of Post 18 are either retired American servicemen who live in Canada,
or are Canadians who served in the American forces, such as during the Vietnam
War. Post 18 arranged with McKee to
perform Memorial Day honors at the gravesites of the veterans he found as part
of his tour. Since then, the remains of
more Civil War veterans and of American veterans of other of her wars have been
located, and Post 18 now conducts Memorial Day honors at three different
cemeteries.
Between the work of historian McKee and the members of
American Legion Post 18, Memorial Day continues to be observed in Canada, and
remains Canada’s oldest service of remembrance.
Canada’s Civil War veterans are honored on that day.
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