Section 1

History

14-1. Funeral services of great magnificence evolved as custom (from what is known about early Christian mourning) in the 6th century. To this day, no religious ceremonies are conducted with more pomp than those intended to commemorate the departed. 

14-2. The first general mourning proclaimed in America was on the death of Benjamin Franklin in 1791. The second was the death of George Washington in 1799. The deep and widespread grief occasioned by the death of the first President assembled a great number of people for the purpose of paying him a last tribute of respect. On 18 December 1799 attended by military honors and the simplest but grandest ceremonies of religion, his body was deposited in the family vault at Mount Vernon, Virginia. 

14-3. Several military traditions employed today have been brought forward from the past: