This myth that Chipman initiated the order creating Memorial Day appears to originate from the 1889 "History of the Grand Army of the Republic" by Robert Burns Beath, published three years after General John A. Logan’s death. It is one of many hoaxes deemed apocryphal by Bellware and Gardiner in "The Genesis of the Memorial Day Holiday in America." In their book, Bellware and Gardiner note that Logan spoke to a group of veterans on July 4, 1866, mentioning the various Southern tributes that occurred that Spring. No one, including Mrs. Logan, Martha Kimball or Norton Chipman (who each claimed to have originated the idea) had to inform Logan about these tributes in 1868, as he became well aware of them two years earlier. Beath actually implies that this order was, instead, an adoption of a Southern custom as the holiday was “generally observed … in the Southern states.” As Adjutant General, Chipman’s name appeared along with Logan, the GAR's Commander-in-Chief, on his famous 1868 Order No. 11 published in newspapers across the country.  However, Logan never credited Chipman or any of the others with originating the idea. Bellware and Gardiner credit Mary Ann Williams and the Ladies Memorial Association of Columbus, Georgia as the true originators of the holiday as abundant contemporaneous evidence from across the nation exists to substantiate the claim.