John Logan, The Hero Who Championed Memorial Day
By PAUL KATZEFF
John
Logan was a powerful Illinois politician who wanted a stint in the Army on his
resume.
It would be a great help in future elections, says historian James Jones of
Florida State University.
Logan got his wish. He ended up as a general in the Union Army during the Civil
War, despite having no formal military training.
West Point-minted generals scorned so-called political generals as incompetent
fools, biographer Gary Ecelbarger says.
Yet by the war's end in 1865, Logan was widely seen as the best of all the
volunteer generals. "Logan, with his distinctive black mustache, rallying men
along the front from atop his horse, was considered a legitimate leader,"
Ecelbarger told IBD. "A great leader even."
Logan (1826-86) fought in eight major Civil War campaigns. He vaulted from there
to a spot on the Republican Party's 1884 ticket as its vice presidential
nominee.
But his widest legacy today is as the founder of Memorial Day.
"Many communities claim to be the site of the first Memorial Day," said Mike
Jones, director of the Gen. John A. Logan Museum in Murphysboro, Ill. "But it
was Logan who took separate observances and put them on a unified, national
basis. Logan was the founder of Memorial Day as a national holiday."
Logan's Keys
•Established the first Memorial Day, calling for its creation as a national
holiday.
•Most effective of the Civil War's political generals — politicians appointed as
high officers — due to a genuine flair for military tactics and leadership.
Little in Logan's background foreshadowed his later deeds.
He grew up on a farm in Missouri. His father was a doctor who had emigrated from
Ireland. On the farm, the elder Logan owned one or more slaves, Ecelbarger says.
Dad And Abe
Prosperity enabled Dr. Logan to sell his slaves and farm and move to Illinois.
He served three terms in the state legislature and became friends with a young
lawyer named Abraham Lincoln.
His home became a social spot for the region's bigwigs. Young John watched the
movers and shakers wheel and deal, getting tutorials in leadership. "By being
there as a boy, John Logan learned firsthand how prominent men conducted
themselves," Mike Jones said.
John Logan served in the Mexican-American War but did not see combat. Then he
became a lawyer and followed his father into politics. He was elected the local
district attorney. In 1852 he was elected to the state House as a Democrat.
Logan had flaws. He soon championed the state's laws barring free blacks from
settling in Illinois.
Logan's views reflected his constituents'. Many residents of southern Illinois
had migrated from the Southeast. "The region was culturally Southern," Mike
Jones said.
In 1858, Logan was elected to the U.S. House. He supported political
compromises aimed at avoiding war between the states.
"His focus was on preserving the Union," professor Jones said. Logan was
starting his second term in the House when war erupted.
The July 1861 Battle of Bull Run, near Manassas, Va., was the first major land
battle of the war.
Logan, not in the Army, was on the scene as a congressional observer.
"Logan was wearing his congressional clothes and a top hat," said Ecelbarger.
"In a skirmish at Blackburn's Ford, he saw a soldier shirking his duty, skulking
toward the rear, and demanded the man's rifle. He fired a few shots. He spent
the rest of the day tending to wounded."
Many in southern Illinois opposed the Union cause. In August 1861 Logan gave a
speech in Marion, Ill., that swayed the area to the Union cause, Mike Jones
says.
In Uniform
Logan volunteered for the Army. He was commissioned a colonel and given command
of a regiment.
Most political volunteers never advanced. But Logan impressed superiors such as
Ulysses S. Grant.
Logan repeatedly put himself in harm's way. Battle after battle, he galloped
along front lines, shouting orders from atop his horse.
He was applying skills he learned as a boy, riding horses at the race track on
his father's farm.
Logan made sure his men could recognize him. He wore a long moustache. He had
black hair, dark eyes and dark skin. His looks earned him the nickname Black
Jack.
Peril was constant. In the November 1861 Battle of Belmont in Missouri,
Confederates shot his horse out from under him. He survived.
Fighting With Grant
Early in 1862, Logan was in Grant's attack on Fort Donelson, Tenn. As federal
forces crumbled on his right flank, Logan's men fought on.
Logan was shot through the left shoulder. With blood streaming through his
bandages, he returned to battle, Mike Jones says.
Then a Rebel rifle ball shattered Logan's holstered pistol. It drove splinters
into his side and nearly broke several ribs. After that, he took a ball in his
right thigh.
By night, Grant had taken the fort. It was the first big Union win of the war.
The future president gave Logan a battlefield promotion to brigadier general.
"Logan had instinctive ideas of what to do in battle," professor Jones said. "He
learned on the job."
Logan was armed with sharp smarts. In one case as district attorney, he
successfully prosecuted a horse thief. When his term expired, the convicted man
hired him to run his appeal. Logan won acquittal.
Ecelbarger said: "When someone asked Logan which verdict was correct, he
deadpanned, 'Both of them.' He was a darn good lawyer, who could win either side
of a case."
Logan was simply a leader of men. "He proved that by winning elections," said
professor Jones. "He became an important legislator when he was young."
And Logan was decisive. When his commander, Gen. James McPherson, was killed in
the Battle of Atlanta in 1864, Logan took over the force.
The Logan museum Web site details his pluck: "Riding among the men to reform his
line, Logan grabbed the flag, raised it high and shouted, 'McPherson and
revenge, boys!' The blue lines firmed. Chanting, 'Black Jack! Black Jack!' the
Army .. . advanced against a hail of Rebel fire and retook all lost ground."
In 1863's Battle of Champion Hill during the siege of Vicksburg, Miss., a
Confederate fortress gripping part of the Mississippi River, Logan found Yankees
running for the rear. When he told the unit to attack a key hill, an officer
protested, "The Rebels are awful thick up there."
Logan yelled, "Damn it, that's the place to kill them, where they are thick!"
The federal troops rallied behind him and took their hill. Within weeks,
Vicksburg fell. A column led by Logan was the first to enter the city. Grant
appointed him military governor of the captured citadel.
Soon Logan was re-elected to the House, this time as a Republican. Logan had
transformed from a Democrat who wanted to avoid war to a staunch backer of
President Lincoln — and now opposed slavery.
Most of Logan's shift was due to seeing friends and comrades killed, wounded and
maimed in defense of the Union, says professor Jones.
After The War
Logan became head of the Grand Army of the Republic. This was the grandfather of
today's veterans' organizations.
He also attended individual towns' observances, honoring war dead.
After his wife attended one in the South, they talked about the value of
creating a national event. And on May 5, 1868, Logan as head of the Grand Army
issued Order No. 11, declaring May 30 as a day to honor fallen soldiers.
"He called this the proudest act of his life," Ecelbarger said.
This article was sent to us by one of our own veterans, Duane Olson.