After four years of special programs, Civil War sesquicentennial commemoration comes to a close Monday with two memorial services and a concert.

At 9 a.m. Vicksburg National Military Park will hold a wreath-laying ceremony in the national cemetery to honor the more than 17,000 Union dead buried there.

The event will include the playing of “Echo Taps” and a rifle salute, VNMP ranger Tim Kavanaugh said.

Admission is free, and visitors coming to the wreath-laying should use the Fort Hill gate to the park.

At 11 a.m., VNMP will repeat the same ceremonies at Soldiers’ Rest, in the Cedar Hill Cemetery, to honor the over 5,000 Confederate dead buried there.

“The public is cordially invited to both, and encouraged to bring a spray of flowers to place with the wreaths, if they so desire,” Kavanaugh said in an email.

For more information on the park events, call 601-636-0583.

At 1 p.m., the Olde Towne Brass will give a concert of Civil War music, played with period arrangements, and on actual Civil War-era instruments on the lawn of the Old Court House.

“They came and started the festivities here at the court house, and this is where it’s going to end,” Old Courthouse Museum Curator Bubba Bolm said.

The concert should last approximately 90 minutes, and will take place in the upstairs courtroom in the event of rain.

“I think the more people the merrier. It should be a nice event,” Bolm said.

“Right now it looks like the weather is going to be fine.”

The American Civil War cost more than 800,000 lives, and changed the foundation of our country and government. It also changed the way Americans view death and sacrifice and led to the founding of the holiday that would eventually become Memorial Day.

In 1868, former Maj. Gen. John A. Logan issued an order through the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization for Union veterans of the war, pushing for May 30 to be recognized nationally as Decoration Day. Logan was a division commander during the Vicksburg Campaign and after the siege was military governor of Vicksburg.

It’s believed Logan chose May 30 because flowers would be in bloom in all parts of the country by that date.