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→Origins of Memorial Day
In the North, individual states adopted May 30th as an official state holiday, but at a federal level, it was not recognized. Perhaps this was due to lingering bitterness between the North and South, where states in the South preferred to have their Decoration day. The bitter years of Reconstruction and white bitterness towards freed slaves did not help, and animosity such as derision of so-called Carpetbaggers from the North moving to the South reflected the years after the Civil War were difficult, where socially the country was still divided.
Decoration Day, nevertheless, developed as a specific holiday devoted to the lost in the Civil War rather than other conflicts, as because it war was by far the bloodiest in the United States' history.<ref>For more on the early traditions of Decoration Day, see: Jabbour, A., & Jabbour, K. S. (2010). <i>Decoration day in the mountains: traditions of cemetery decoration in the southern Appalachians</i>. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.</ref>
====Later Development====
