By April 1865 the city of Charleston, South Carolina was in ruins. While the Confederates still clung to Fort Sumpter, eight months of bombardment by Union guns had turned the city into a shadow of its former glory.

Much of the white population of the city had fled as Sherman’s army approached. He did not choose to enter the city, although he certainly could have if he had wanted to. He chose to burn his way through the plantations surrounding the city, which led to his famous Special Order No. 15, which would have distributed the costal lowlands to the millions of slaves who had worked the fields of rice, sugar and indigo. Sadly, his offer of 40 acres and mule to every adult male slave never came to pass.

Outside Charleston was a racetrack built by the wealthy planters to show off their thoroughbreds. Washington Park had an infield for picnicking and a grandstand for viewing.

However, during these last months of the Civil War, Washington Park was used as a prisoner of war camp for Union soldiers and sailors captured during the siege of Charleston. As their Confederate captors prepared to leave in advance of Sherman’s approach, they buried 257 of those prisoners in a common grave in the infield where once ladies had sipped lemonade and watched the horse races. These men had died from malnutrition, exposure, dysentery, and all the other diseases both sides visited on their captives during this awful war.

It is likely that these men may still have been there today had not formerly enslaved Black people taken it upon themselves to disinter their bodies and bury them with dignity with headstones surrounded by a white picket fence. At the entrance to this new cemetery, they raised a plaque that honored those who had paid the price of bringing freedom to men and women that they never knew.

But that was not all.

In May of that year, 3,000 Black women led a parade to the cemetery bearing flowers to decorate the graves. Union troops, both white and black, accompanied them, along with at least three preachers and a marching band. Once the ceremony concluded, Black men and women sat and picnicked with white troops, a scene of racial harmony that would not be repeated in South Carolina for 100 years.

It was the first Decoration Day, a tradition that has come down to us as Memorial Day. But in every northern town well into the 20th century, young girls would repeat the tribute of bringing flowers to decorate the graves of veterans.

We cannot know what was in their hearts. We do not know now how this nation will remember those scenes of interracial harmony at the end of a cruel war.

But even in these times of polarization, as some celebrate victory in the recent election and others mourn for what it has brought us, let us remember a moment in our history when those who had borne the burden of the battle for freedom were celebrated by those who achieved it.

David Parrella lives in Buckland.