The ceremony was centered around a mansion in Arlington Virginia that once belonged to Robert E. Lee and was presided over by General Ulysses S. Grant and his wife. After a speech children from the Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphan Home along with Civil War Veterans walked through the cemetery placing flowers on graves, praying and singing hymns.
In 1971 Decoration Day was declared by Congress to be a National Holiday to fall on the last Monday in May. It is also known as Memorial Day and includes all who died in any American War.
George Daniel Pearis was born on February 13 1847 in Giles, Virginia and on 27 April 1864 when he was just 17 he enlisted in the Confederate Army as a Private under Captain Thomas A. Bryan. He was in Bryan's Artillary a part of McLaughlin's Battallion. On 10 May 1864 Private George Daniel Pearis was killed in action at what became known as The Battle at Cloyd's Mountain.
The battle began on May 9 1864 and by the end there were 688 Union casualties and 538 confederate, 1226 deaths all told.
The Union won the Battle of Cloyd's Mountain allowing them to destroy the railroad system that connected Tennessee to Virginia.
The Confederate troops under the Leadership of Brigadeir General Albert Gallatin Jenkins
took up a strong defensive position at Cloyd's Mountain. The Union troops under leadership of future president, Colonel Rutherford B. Hays
at about 11:00 AM charged the Confederate troops who had been bombarded with massive artillary just moments before and savage hand to hand combat followed. The area was in a dense forrest and the leaves that had fallen the previous fall were dry, thick and brittle. Within moments sparks from musket fire ignited a blaze and soon the battle field was engulfed in flames. Many Union soldiers were trapped and pinned in by the blaze and were burned alive. Seeing that the smaller Confederate troops were occupied with the fire; reinforcements were sent in and Jenkins in an effort to fortify the area left unguarded was wounded and taken prisoner. His second in command John McCausland organized the Confederates and with-drew them.
The Battle lasted a little over an hour, the hand to hand combat was so ferocious the severity of it earned this battle the title as one of the most savage of the war.
The following day, still trying to salvage a railroad bridge the Confederates took up again, a defensive posture but they lost and again withdrew.
There is whisper of a legend at this battlesite. Sometime near the end of the fighting a Union soldier fighting near Colonel Hays was ordered to take cover and withdraw. The soldier refused declaring that they would not take cover until Colonel Hays did. The soldier was mortally wounded and while receiving first aid was discovered to be a woman.
George Daniel Pearis was my 2nd cousin.
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