Return to home1862 Jan 1,
The US federal government Tax Act of July 14, 1862, took effect as
of January 1, 1862.
(AP, 8/5/97)(http://tinyurl.com/brzpcg3)
1862 Jan 4, In the Romney
Campaign Stonewall Jackson occupied Bath.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1862 Jan 7, Battle of Manassas
Junction, VA.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1862 Jan 8, Frank Nelson
Doubleday, founder of Doubleday publishing house, was born.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1862 Jan 10, Battle of Big
Sandy River, KY (Middle Creek).
(MC, 1/10/02)
1862 Jan 10, Battle of Romney,
WV.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1862 Jan 10, Samuel Colt (47),
inventor (6 shot revolver), died.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1862 Jan 11, Lincoln accepted
Simon Cameron's resignation as Secretary of War.
(HN, 1/11/99)
1862 Jan 13, President Lincoln
named Edwin M. Stanton Secretary of War.
(HN, 1/13/99)
1862 Jan 18, Confederate
Territory of Arizona formed.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1862 Jan 18, John Tyler (71),
10th president of the United States (1841-1845), died and was buried
at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Va. He drank a mint julep every
morning for breakfast. Tyler had joined the Confederacy after his
presidency and was designated a "sworn enemy of the United States."
(AP, 1/18/98)(SFEC, 11/15/98, Z1 p.10)(SFEC,
12/20/98, Z1 p.8)(HN, 1/18/99)
1862 Jan 22, Confederate
government raised the premium for volunteers from $10 to $20.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1862 Jan 24, Edith Wharton
(d.1937), U.S. novelist was born. Her novels included Age of
Innocence," House of Mirth," "Summer," and "Ethan Frome." She also
wrote books on home design. "There are two ways of spreading light:
to be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it." "The essence of
taste is suitability. Divest the word of its prim and priggish
implications, and see how it expresses the mysterious demand of the
eye and mind for symmetry, harmony and order." In 1978 Gore Vidal
edited the "Edith Wharton Omnibus." Eleanor Dwight wrote her 1994
biography: "An Extraordinary Life."
(AP, 8/17/97)(WSJ, 12/9/97, p.A20)(AP,
1/11/98)(HN, 1/24/99)(SSFC, 1/14/01, BR p.8)
1862 Jan 27, President Abraham
Lincoln issued General War Order No. 1, setting in motion the Union
armies.
(HN, 1/27/99)
1862 Jan 29, William Quantrill
and his Confederate raiders attack Danville, Kentucky.
(HN, 1/29/00)
1862 Jan 30, The USS Monitor, a
Union ironclad ship designed by John Ericsson, was launched into the
East River at Greenpoint, Long Island, under Captain John L. Worden.
It was the first warship equipped with a revolving turret. On March
6 it left NY Harbor and headed for Virginia to face the Confederate
ironclad.
(HN, 1/30/99)(AH, 12/02, p.8)(ON, 10/08, p.1)
1862 Feb 1, "The Battle Hymn of
the Republic" was first published in "Atlantic Monthly" as an
anonymous poem. The lyric was the work of Julia Ward Howe and was
based on chapter 63 of the Old Testament’s Book of Isaiah. "The
Battle Hymn of the Republic" soon became the most popular Union
marching song of the Civil War and is still being sung and to
the tune of a song titled, "John Brown’s Body". Julia Ward Howe
(b.1819-1908) was an influential social reformer and wife of fellow
reformer and educator Samuel Gridley Howe. She was prominent in the
anti-slavery movement, woman‘s suffrage, prison reform and the
international peace movements. Julia Ward Howe was the first woman
elected to the American Academy of Fine Arts and Letters in 1908.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, said: "I honor the author of 'The Battle Hymn'
... she was born in the city of New York. I could well wish she were
a native of Massachusetts. We have no such poetess in New England."
(440 Int'l, 2/1/1999)(HNQ, 1/31/00,5/21/02)
1862 Feb 6, Ulysses S. Grant
began a military campaign in Mississippi. The Battle of Fort Henry,
Tenn., began the Mississippi Valley campaign.
(HN, 2/6/99)(MC, 2/6/02)
1862 Feb 7, Bernard Maybeck
(d.1957), architect, was born in NYC. He designed the Palace of Fine
Arts in SF and the First Church of Christ Scientist in Berkeley.
(SFEM,12/797,
p.46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Maybeck)
1862 Feb 7, Federal fleet
attacked Roanoke Island, NC.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1862 Feb 8, Union troops under
Gen. Ambrose Burnside defeated a Confederate defense force at the
Battle of Roanoke Island, N.C.
(HN, 2/8/99)
1862 Feb 13, Four-day Battle of
Fort Donelson, Tenn., began. General Grant said, "What determined my
attack on Donelson was as much the knowledge I had gained of its
commanders in Mexico as anything else."
(HN, 2/13/98)
1862 Feb 14, Galena, the 1st US
iron-clad warship for service at sea, was launched in Conn.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1862 Feb 15, Grant launched a
major assault on Fort Donelson, Tenn.
(HN, 2/15/98)
1862 Feb 16, During the Civil
War, some 14,000 Confederate soldiers surrendered at Fort Donelson,
Tenn. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s victory earned him the nickname
"Unconditional Surrender Grant." Nathan Bedford Forrest escaped.
(AP, 2/16/98)(HN, 2/16/98)
1862 Feb 18, Charles M. Schwab,
"Boy Wonder" of the steel industry, was born. He became president of
both U.S. Steel and Bethlehem Steel.
(HN, 2/18/99)
1862 Feb 20, Willie Lincoln
(b.1850), son of Pres. Lincoln, died in Washington DC. Typhoid fever
was the suspected cause.
(SSFC, 3/20/05, Par
p.4)(www.nps.gov/liho/lincoln.htm)
1862 Feb 21, The Texas Rangers
won a Confederate victory in the Battle of Val Verde, New Mexico.
(HN, 2/21/98)
1862 Feb 21, Confederate
Constitution & presidency were declared permanent.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1862 Feb 22, Jefferson Davis
was inaugurated president of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va. for
the second time.
(HN, 2/22/98)
1862 Feb 22, Mary Smith Peake
(1823-1862), American teacher and humanitarian, died of
tuberculosis. She is best known for teaching runaway slaves under an
oak tree, the Emancipation Oak, near Fort Monroe, Va.
(ON, 2/12,
p.2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_S._Peake)
1862 Feb 25, Congress formed
the US Bureau of Engraving & Printing. Greenbacks were
introduced.
(MC, 2/25/02)
1862 Feb 25, Confederate troops
abandoned Nashville, Tenn., in the face of Grant’s advance.
(HN, 2/25/98)
1862 Feb 25, The ironclad
Monitor was commissioned at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
(HN, 2/25/98)
1862 Feb 26, Battle of
Woodburn, KY.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1862 Feb 26, Cornelius Felton
(b.1807), president of Harvard Univ., died in Chester, Pen., after 2
years in office.
(WSJ, 2/21/06,
p.A3)(www.nndb.com/people/711/000107390/)
1862 Feb 28, Karl Goldmark's
opera "The Queen of Sheba," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1862 Mar 2, Gen’l. Frederick W.
Lander (b.1821), transcontinental engineer and Union General, died
of “congestion of the brain" at Paw Paw, Virginia. He was the chief
engineer of the Central Overland route. In 2000 Gary L. Ecalbarger
authored “Frederick W. Lander: The Great Natural American Soldier."
(www.picturehistory.com/find/p/16832/mcms.html)(ACC, 2004)
1862 Mar 3, General Pope laid
siege in front of New Madrid, MO.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1862 Mar 6, Battle of Pea
Ridge, AR (Elkhorn Tavern). [see Mar 7]
(MC, 3/6/02)
1862 Mar 7, Confederate forces
surprised the Union army at the Battle of Pea Ridge, in Arkansas,
but the Union was victorious. [see Mar 6]
(HN, 3/7/99)
1862 Mar 7, In the second day
of the Battle of Elkhorn Tavern, Generals McCulloch and McIntosh
perished.
(HN, 3/7/98)
1862 Mar 8, On the second day
of the Battle of Pea Ridge (Elkhorn Tavern) in Arkansas, Confederate
forces, including some Indian troops, under General Earl Van Dorn
surprised Union troops, but the Union troops won the battle. Pea
Ridge Natl. Military Park, Arkansas, marked the site where
Confederate commanders, Gen. Ben McCulloch and Gen. James McIntosh,
were killed.
(Postcard, Coastal Photo Scenics, SW
Harbor, Maine)(HN, 3/8/98)(HN, 3/8/99)
1862 Mar 8, The ironclad CSS
Virginia (formerly USS Merrimack) rammed and sank the USS Cumberland
and inflicted heavy damage on the USS Congress, both frigates, off
Newport News, Va. Popular during the Crimean War, the floating
battery was revived by hard-pressed Confederates.
(AP, 3/8/07)(HN, 3/8/98)
1862 Mar 8, Nat Gordon, last
pirate, was hanged in NYC for stealing 1,000 slaves.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1862 Mar 9, The ironclads, CSS
Virginia, (formerly Merrimac) of the South, battled the USS Monitor,
designed by John Ericsson, in their first battle for five hours to a
draw at Hampton Roads, Va. The story is told by James Tertius deKay
in his 1998 book “Monitor: The Story of the Legendary Civil War
Ironclad and the Man Whose Invention Changed the Course of History."
(SFEC, 1/18/98, Par p.16)(AP, 3/9/98)(HN, 3/9/98)
1862 Mar 10, First U.S. paper
money was issued in denominations of $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500
& $1000.
(HN, 3/10/98)(MC, 3/10/02)
1862 Mar 11, Pres. Lincoln
suspended General George McClellan from command of all the Union
armies so that McClellan could concentrate on the Army of the
Potomac and Richmond.
(www.civilwarhome.com/macbio.htm)
1862 Mar 12, Jane Delano
(d.1919), nurse, teacher and founder of the American Red Cross, was
born in Montour Falls, New York. She helped the American Red Cross
Nursing Service to be recognized as the nursing reserve for the Army
and Navy.
(www.wordiq.com/definition/Jane_Delano)
1862 Mar 13, The US Congress
passed a bill prohibiting the military from returning slaves to
their masters.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_Prohibiting_the_Return_of_Slaves)
1862 Mar 14, Battle of New
Bern, NC. General Burnside conquered New Bern, a strategic port and
rail hub.
(AM, 11/04, p.28)
1862 Mar 15, General John Hunt
Morgan began four days of raids near the city of Gallatin, Tenn.
"The Yankees will never take me a prisoner again," vowed Confederate
General John Hunt Morgan.
(HN, 3/15/98)
1862 Mar 19, F. Wilhelm von
Schadow (73), German painter (Modern Vasari), died.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1862 Mar 23, Battle of
Kernstown, Va., began. Winchester, Va., was another embattled town.
Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson faced his only defeat
at the Battle of Kernstown, Va., as he began his Valley Campaign.
(HN, 3/23/98)(HN, 3/23/99)(SS, 3/23/02)
1862 Mar 24, Abolitionist
Wendell Phillips spoke to a crowd about emancipation in Cincinnati,
Ohio and was pelted by eggs.
(HN, 3/24/00)
1862 Mar 26, Battle of La
Glorieta Pass, New Mexico Territory (Apache Canyon, Pigeon's Ranch).
(SS, 3/26/02)
1862 Mar 28, Aristide Briand,
premier of France (1909-22), was born.
(HN, 3/28/98)
1862 Mar 28, US Civil War
skirmish at Bealeton Station, Virginia.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1862 Mar 31, Skirmishing
between Rebels and Union forces took place at Island 10 on the
Mississippi River.
(HN, 3/31/98)
1862 Apr 1, Shenandoah Valley
campaign, Jackson's Battle of Woodstock, VA.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1862 Apr 3, A bill was passed
to abolish slavery in Washington, D.C. [see Apr 16]
(HN, 4/3/98)
1862 Apr 4, Battle of Yorktown,
Virginia, began as Union gen. George B. McClellan closed in on
Richmond. This began the Peninsular Campaign aimed at capturing
Richmond.
(HN, 4/4/99)(MC, 4/4/02)
1862 Apr 5, Siege of Yorktown,
VA., continued.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1862 Apr 6, Two days of bitter
fighting began at the Civil War battle of Shiloh (called Pittsburg
Landing by the Confederates) as the Confederates attacked Grant's
Union forces in southwestern Tennessee. Union commander Maj. Gen.
Ulysses S. Grant, planning to advance on the important railway
junction at Corinth, Miss., met a surprise attack by General Albert
Sidney Johnston's Army of Mississippi. The Confederates pushed the
Federals back steadily during the first day's fighting, in spite of
Johnston's death that afternoon. Only with the arrival of Union
reinforcements during the night did the tide turn, forcing the
rebels to withdraw. The opposing sides slaughtered each other with
such ferocity that one survivor wrote, "No blaze of glory...can ever
atone for the unwritten and unutterable horrors of the scene." Gen.
Ulysses Grant after the Battle of Shiloh said: "I saw an open
field... so covered with dead that it would have been possible to
walk across... in any direction, stepping on dead bodies without a
foot touching the ground." More than 9,000 Americans died. The
battle left some 24,000 casualties and secured the West for the
Union. In 1952 Shelby Foote wrote "Shiloh," an historical novel
based on documentation from participants in the battle. Recorded
Books made a cassette version in 1992.
(SFC, 6/19/96, p.E5)(HT, 4/97, p.13)(AP,
4/6/97)(AM, May/Jun 97 p.27)(RBI, 1992)(HN, 4/6/98)(HNPD, 4/6/99)
1862 Apr 6, Albert Sidney
Johnston (59), US and Confederate general, was killed in battle of
Shiloh.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1862 Apr 7, Union forces led by
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Confederates at the battle of
Shiloh in Tennessee. Gen. Ulysses Grant after the Battle of Shiloh
said: "I saw an open field... so covered with dead that it would
have been possible to walk across... in any direction, stepping on
dead bodies without a foot touching the ground." More than 9,000
Americans died.
(SFC, 6/19/96, p.E5)(HT, 4/97, p.13)(AP, 4/7/97)
1862 Apr 8, John D. Lynde
patented an aerosol dispenser.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1862 Apr 10, Union forces began
the bombardment of Fort Pulaski in Georgia along the Tybee River.
(HN, 4/10/99)
1862 Apr 11, Charles Evans
Hughs, 11th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1930-41), was
born. He resisted President Franklin Roosevelt’s attempts to "pack"
the Supreme Court with judges favorable to the New Deal.
(HN, 4/11/99)
1862 Apr 11, Rebels surrendered
Ft Pulaski, Georgia.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1862 Apr 12, Union volunteers
from Ohio, led by Lt. James J. Andrews, stole a Confederate train
near Marietta, Ga. They were caught 89 miles up the track. 8 of the
24 raiders were hanged that summer. 8 others escaped and made their
way north. The episode inspired Buster Keaton’s 1927 comedy "The
General." In 1956 Disney retold the story in “The Great Locomotive
Chase" with Fess Parker. In 2006 Russell S. Bonds authored “Stealing
the General."
(AP, 4/12/00)(WSJ, 11/10/06, p.W4)
1862 Apr 12, Union troops
occupied Fort Pulaski, Georgia.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1862 Apr 13, In the Washington
area volunteers led by Sarah J. Evans paid homage to the graves of
Civil War soldiers. Villagers in Waterloo, NY, held their 1st
Memorial Day service on May 5, 1866. In 1966 Pres. Johnson gave
Waterloo, NY, the distinction of holding the 1st Memorial Day.
(SFC, 5/26/03, p.A2)
1862 Apr 16, Confederate
President Jefferson Davis approved conscription act for white males
between 18 and 35.
(HN, 4/16/98)
1862 Apr 16, President Lincoln
signed a bill, passed on April 3, ending slavery in the District of
Columbia.
(HN, 4/16/98)(AP, 4/16/08)
1862 Apr 18, Battle of Ft
Jackson, Ft St. Philip and New Orleans, LA.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1862 Apr 19, Simon Fraser,
Canadian explorer, died.
(MC, 4/19/02)
1862 Apr 21, Ellen Price Wood's
"East Lynne," premiered in Boston.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1862 Apr 21, Congress
established the U.S. Mint.
(HN, 4/21/98)
1862 Apr 25, Admiral David
Farragut gained control of the Mississippi River at New Orleans,
Louisiana. A few days later federal troops occupied the city. This
stopped cotton sales by the Confederacy a revenue shortage that led
to printed money and hyperinflation. In 2000 Jack D. Coombe
published "Gunfire Around the Gulf," which recounts the Southern
Civil War naval campaign.
(www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=1105)(WSJ,
1/26/00, p.A20)(WSJ, 11/21/08, p.W6)
1862 Apr 29, Forts Philip and
Jackson surrendered to Union forces under Admiral Farragut outside
New Orleans. 100,000 federal troops prepared to march into Corinth,
Miss.
(AP, 4/29/98)(HN, 4/29/98)(MC, 4/29/02)
1862 May 1, Marcel Prevost,
French publisher, writer (Les demis-vierges), was born.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1862 May 4, Battle at
Williamsburg, Virginia. [see May 5]
(MC, 5/4/02)
1862 May 4, At Yorktown, VA.,
McClellan halted his troop before town as it was full of armed land
mines left by CS Brig. general Gabrial Rains.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1862 May 5, Battle of
Williamsburg commenced as part of the Peninsular Campaign.
Confederate Captain Charles Bruce kept his father apprised of
conditions during the crucial Peninsula campaign.
(HN, 5/5/98)
1862 May 5, At the Battle of
Pueblo, a [2,000] 5,000 man Mexican force (cavalry), loyal to Benito
Juarez and under the leadership of Gen’l. Ignacio Zaragoza, defeated
6,000 [10,000] French troops sent by Napoleon III. The French were
attempting to capture Puebla de Los Angeles, a small town in
east-central Mexico. The Battle of Puebla represented a great moral
victory for the Mexican government, symbolizing the country's
ability to defend its sovereignty against threat by a powerful
foreign nation. The event became memorialized in the Cinco de Mayo
annual festival. Napoleon had intended to march through to the US
and help the Confederacy in the Civil War.
(SFEM, 4/27/97, p.6)(AP, 5/5/97)(SFEC,11/9/97,
p.T6)(SFEC, 11/8/98, p.T8)(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A13)(WSJ, 5/5/00,
p.W17)(MC, 5/5/02)
1862 May 6, Henry David Thoreau
(44), American writer, died of tuberculosis. In 1999 his unfinished
manuscript "Wild Fruits," a catalog of his observations on local
plants and fruits, was published.
(WP, 1952, p.42)(SFC, 9/7/99, p.A3)(HN,
5/6/01)
1862 May 7, At the Battle of
Eltham's Landing in Virginia, Confederate troops struck Union troops
in the Shenandoah Valley.
(HN, 5/7/99)
1862 May 8, General 'Stonewall'
Jackson repulsed the Federals at the Battle of McDowell, in the
Shenandoah Valley Campaign.
(HN, 5/8/99)
1862 May 9, Battle of Ft.
Pickens, FL (Pensacola), evacuated by CSA.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1862 May 9, Battle of
Farmington, MS.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1862 May 9, US Naval Academy
was relocated from Annapolis MD to Newport, RI.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1862 May 10, Battle of Plum Run
Bend, TN (Plum Point Bend).
(MC, 5/10/02)
1862 May 11, The Confederates
scuttled the CSS Virginia off Norfolk, Virginia.
(HN, 5/11/98)
1862 May 12, Federal troops
occupied Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1862 May 13, Robert Smalls, a
slave crewman on the Confederate steamboat Planter, stole the ship
from the harbor of Charleston and surrendered it to the USS Onward
of the Union blockade. In 1971 Okon Edet Uya published "From slavery
to Public Service: Robert Smalls, 1839-1915.
(ON, 5/00, p.2)
1862 May 15, Arthur Schnitzler,
playwright, novelist (La Ronde), was born in Austria.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1862 May 15, The US Department
of Agriculture was created.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1862 May 15, General Benjamin
F. ("Beast") Butler decreed "Woman Order," that all captured women
in New Orleans were to be his whores.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1862 May 15, The Union ironclad
Monitor and the gunboat Galena fired on Confederate troops at the
Battle of Drewry's Bluff, Virginia.
(HN, 5/15/99)
1862 May 15, The Confederate
cruiser Alabama ran aground near London.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1862 May 15-17, Battle of
Princeton, WV.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1862 May 18, William
High Keim (b.1813), US Union Brigadier-General, died in camp of
fever in Harrisburg, Pa.
(SC,
5/18/02)(http://home.ptd.net/~nikki/usagen3.htm)
1862 May 19, Homestead Act
became law and provided cheap land for settlement of West.
(MC, 5/19/02)
1862 May 20, President Lincoln
signed the Homestead Act, providing 250 million acres of free land
to settlers in the West. It officially opened the Nebraska territory
for settlement, leading to statehood in 1867. The US government
passed the Homestead Act to stop the spread of slavery to the
Western territories. Public land was awarded to any head of a family
on condition that the settlers improve the land and live there for 5
years.
(Hem., 5/97, p.20)(HNQ, 12/3/00)(HN, 5/20/01)
1862 May 23, Stonewall Jackson
took Fort Royal, Virginia, in the Valley Campaign.
(HN, 5/23/98)
1862 May 24, Westminster Bridge
opened across the Thames.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1862 May 25, Battle of
Winchester, VA.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1862 May 25, Johann N. Nestroy
(60) Austrian actor (Einmal Keine Sorgen Haben), died.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1862 May 27, Battle of Hanover
Court House, VA (Slash Church, Peake's Station).
(MC, 5/27/02)
1862 May 29, Confederate
General P.T. Beauregard retreated to Tupelo, Mississippi. He had
taken command of the Trans-Mississippi area after the death of
General Albert Sidney Johnson.
(HN, 5/29/99)
1862 May 29, Franciszek
Wincenty Mirecki (71), composer, died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1862 May 30, Confederate
General Beauregard evacuated Corinth, Mississippi and Union troops
under Union General Henry Halleck entered.
(HN, 5/30/98)
1862 May 30, Battle of Front
Royal, VA.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1862 May 31, At the Battle of
Fair Oaks, McClellan defeated the Confederates outside of Richmond.
(HN, 5/31/98)
1862 May, Union Colonel
Benjamin H. Grierson was commissioned a major in the 6th Illinois
Cavalry. He proved to be an excellent cavalry leader despite his
prewar experience as a music teacher who hated horses. Grierson had
traveled to various small towns organizing amateur bands. When the
war began, the Midwesterner enlisted as a private in the infantry.
He very much wanted to do his share of the fighting on foot; while a
child, he had been kicked in the face by a horse and still harbored
a severe dislike for the equine creatures. This was not to be. A man
with little military training or experience--and a pronounced
dislike of horses--would soon prove to be one of the most skilled
cavalry leaders of the war. His raids in early 1863 greatly helped
Grant’s army in the siege of Vicksburg.
(HN, 6/28/01)
1862 Jun 1, General Robert E.
Lee assumed command of the Confederate Army outside Richmond after
General Joe Johnston was injured at Seven Pines. Robert E. Lee
received a field command: the Army of Northern Virginia.
(DTnet, 6/1/97)(HN, 6/1/98)(HNQ, 8/2/01)
1862 Jun 4, Confederates
evacuated Ft. Pillow, Tenn.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1862 Jun 6, The city of Memphis
surrendered to the Union Navy after an intense naval engagement on
the Mississippi River.
(HN, 6/6/98)
1862 Jun 6, Battle of Port
Royal, SC (Port Royal Ferry). [see Jul 4, 1862]
(MC, 6/6/02)
1862 Jun 7, William Mumford
became the 1st US citizen to be hanged for treason.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1862 Jun 7, James J. Andrews
(b.1829), civilian Union spy, was hanged in Atlanta for leading the
April 12 Union raid in Georgia that stole the locomotive “General"
in an effort to disrupt Confederate transport. 7 others Union men
were also hanged for the raid.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_J._Andrews)
1862 Jun 8, The Army of the
Potomac defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Cross Keys,
Virginia, during the Peninsula Campaign.
(HN, 6/8/98)
1862 Jun 9, Battle of Port
Republic, last of 5 battles in Jackson's Valley camp.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1862 Jun 12, Confederate
General J. E. B. Stuart began his ride around the Union Army outside
of Richmond, Virginia.
(HN, 6/12/99)
1862 Jun 15, General J.E.B.
Stuart completes his "ride around McClellan."
(HN, 6/15/98)
1862 Jun 19, Slavery was
outlawed in U.S. territories. President Abraham Lincoln outlined his
Emancipation Proclamation. News of the document reached the south
and Texas through General Gordon Granger.
(BEP, 1994)(DTnet, 6/19/97)(HN, 6/19/99)
1862 Jun 21, Union and
Confederate forces skirmished at the Chickahominy Creek during the
Peninsular Campaign.
(HN, 6/21/98)
1862 Jun 24, U.S. intervention
saved the British and French at the Dagu forts in China.
(HN, 6/24/98)
1862 Jun 25, The first day of
the Seven Days Campaign began with fighting at Oak Grove, Virginia,
with Robert E. Lee commanding the Confederate Army for the first
time.
(HN, 6/25/98)
1862 Jun 26, General Robert E.
Lee attacked McClellan's line at Mechanicsville of day 2 of the
Seven Days battle near Richmond, Va.
(HN, 6/26/98)(MC, 6/26/02)
1862 Jun 27, May Irwin, US
comedienne, singer (A Hot Time in the Old Town), was born.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1862 Jun 27, Confederates broke
through the Union lines at the Battle of Gaines’ Mill on the 3rd day
of the Seven Days Battle in Virginia.
(HN, 6/27/98)
1862 Jun 28, At Garnett’s and
Golding’s farms, fighting continued for a 4th day between Union and
Confederate forces during the Seven Days in Virginia.
(HN, 6/28/98)
1862 Jun 29, Union forces
continued to fall back from Richmond, but put up a fight at the
Battle of Savage’s Station on day 5 of the 7 Days Battle.
(HN, 6/29/98)(MC, 6/29/02)
1862 Jun 30, The Confederates
failed to coordinate their attacks at the Battle of White Oak Swamp,
allowing the Union forces to retreat to Malvern Hill in Virginia on
Day 6 of the 7 Days-Battle. This battle in Virginia was alternately
known as the battle of White Oak Swamp, Frayser’s Farm, Glendale,
Charles City Cross Roads, Nelson’s Farm, New Market Cross Roads and
Turkey Bend!
(HN, 6/30/98)(HNQ, 3/5/01)(AM, 11/04, p.28)
1862 Jun 30, Julian Scott (16)
sustained a hip injury during the Battle of White Oak Swamp. During
his nine-month convalescence he developed a friendship with
millionaire Henry Clark, who encouraged Scott to develop his
artistic talent. After he obtained an honorable discharge from the
army, Scott returned to the front to record the war through his art.
(HNQ, 12/20/02)
1862 Jun 30, Gustave Flaubert
completed "Salammbo."
(MC, 6/30/02)
1862 Jun, Some 5,000 wounded
soldiers came into Richmond after the Battle of Seven Pines.
(AH, 6/02, p.23)
1862 Jun, SF Lawmakers signed a
petition to anoint Lazarus (d.1963) and Bummer (d.1865), 2 popular
rat catching dogs, as official city property and exempt from the
recently passed muzzle law. In 1984 Malcolm E. Barker authored
“Bummer & Lazarus: San Francisco’s Famous Dogs."
(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.D6)(SFC, 1/30/04, p.A23)(SSFC,
7/24/11, p.E11)
1862 Jun, Samuel and Florence
Baker arrived in Khartoum, Sudan, on their search for explorers John
Speke and James Grant.
(ON, 10/01, p.9)
1862 Jul 1, Abraham Lincoln
instituted an income tax to pay for the Civil War. The US Internal
Revenue Service (IRS) was founded. Internal Revenue Law imposed
federal taxes on inheritance, tobacco & a progressive rate on
incomes over $600.
(SFC, 11/2/96, p.D1)(WSJ, 12/15/95, p.A-1)
1862 Jul 1, Pres. Lincoln
signed the Pacific Railway Act.
(SSFC, 9/23/12, p.H3)
1862 Jul 1, The US Congress
outlawed polygamy for the 1st time. The Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act,
signed by Pres. Lincoln, made polygamy illegal in American
territories. It led to the prosecution of over 1300 Mormons. It also
granted large tracts of public land to the states with the directive
to sell for the support of institutions teaching the mechanical and
agricultural arts. It also obligated state male university students
to military training. The education initiative resulted in 68
land-grant colleges.
(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.39)(SFEM, 1/30/00, p.8,14)(HNQ,
10/6/02)(MC, 7/1/02)
1862 Jul 1, In day 7 of the 7
Days Battle Union artillery stopped a Confederate attack at Malvern
Hill, Virginia. Casualties totaled: US 15,249 and CS 17,583.
(HN, 7/1/98)(MC, 7/1/02)
1862 Jul 1, Czar Alexander II
granted Jews the right to publish books.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1862 Jul 2, Lincoln signed an
act granting land for state agricultural colleges. [see Jul 1]
(SC, 7/2/02)
1862 Jul 4, Charles Dodgson, an
Oxford mathematician whose penname of Lewis Carroll would make him
world famous, told little Alice Liddell on a boat trip the fairy
tale he had dreamed up for her called "Alice's Adventures
Underground." He later wrote it out for her and it became the
classic children's tale, "Alice in Wonderland."
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1862 Jul 4, Battle at Green
River, Ky. (Morgan's Ohio Raid).
(Maggio, 98)
1862 Jul 4, Battle of Port
Royal, SC. (Port Royal Ferry). [see Jun 6, 1862]
(Maggio, 98)
1862 Jul 8, Odore R. Timby
patented a revolving gun turret.
(MC, 7/8/02)
1862 Jul 9, Gen. John Hunt
Morgan captured Tompkinsville, Ky.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1862 Jul 10, Helene Schjerfbeck
(d.1946), Finnish painter, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helene_Schjerfbeck)
1862 Jul 11, President Abraham
Lincoln appointed General Henry Halleck as general in chief of the
Federal army. [see Aug 11] Stephen Ambrose later authored "Halleck:
Lincoln’s Chief of Staff."
(HN, 7/11/98)(WSJ, 8/20/01, p.A8)
1862 Jul 12, The US Congress
authorized the Medal of Honor. Between 1861 and 1999 the medal was
awarded to 3,410 members of the US armed forces. The Web site for
the US Army Center of Military History:
www2.army.mil/cmh-pg/moh1.htm
(AP, 7/12/97)(SFC, 5/31/99, p.A7)
1862 Jul 12, Federal troops
occupied Helena, Arkansas.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1862 Jul 13, Confederate
General Nathan Bedford Forrest defeated a Union army at
Murfreesboro, Tennessee. [see Aug 13]
(HN, 7/13/98)
1862 Jul 15, Lt. Isaac Brown
took the Confederate ironclad C.S.S. Arkansas into the Mississippi
River and engaged 3 Union ships near Vicksburg. The CSS Arkansas vs.
USS Carondelet and Queen of the West engaged at Yazoo River.
(ON, 10/02, p.12)(MC, 7/15/02)
1862 Jul 16, Ida Bell Wells,
first president of the American Negro League, was born.
(HN, 7/16/98)
1862 Jul 16, David G. Farragut
became the first rear admiral in the U.S. Navy.
(AP, 7/16/97)
1862 Jul 16, Two Union soldiers
and their servant ransacked a house and raped a slave in
Sperryville, Virginia.
(HN, 7/16/99)
1862 Jul 17, US army was
authorized to accept blacks as laborers.
(MC, 7/17/02)
1862 Jul 17, James Glaisher
(52), British meteorologist, rose to some 22,000 over Wolverhampton
with balloonist Henry Tracy Coxwell in an attempt to set an altitude
record. They reached 24,000 feet in a 2nd attempt on Aug 18. On Sep
5 Glaisher passed out as they reached 29,000 feet. At a record 7
miles Coxwell managed to begin their descent.
(ON, 4/03, p.11)
1862 Jul 19, Nathan Bedford
Forrest made his 1st raid.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1862 Jul 20-Sep 20, A guerrilla
campaign in GA (Porter's & Poindexter's) left US 580 and CS
2,866 casualties.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1862 Jul 24, Union fleets
abandoned their attack on Vicksburg, Miss.
(ON, 10/02, p.12)
1862 Jul 24, Martin Van Buren
(79), the eighth president of the United States, died in Kinderhook,
N.Y.
(AP, 7/24/97)(HN, 7/24/98)
1862 Jul 29, At Moore’s Mill in
Missouri, the Confederates were routed by Union guerrillas.
(HN, 7/29/98)
1862 Jul, The bugle call known
as "Taps," originally based on a French bugle signal called "tatoo"
was rewritten by Union Gen’l. Daniel Adams Butterfield with the help
of an aide and brigade bugler, Oliver W. Norton. Up to then the
army’s infantry call to end the day was the French final call:
"L’Extinction des feux."
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.E8)
1862 Jul, Another 10 thousand
wounded men came into Richmond along with thousands of Federal
prisoners.
(AH, 6/02, p.23)
1862 Jul, John Speke and James
Grant discovered Ripon Falls at the northern end of Lake Victoria
(Uganda), which he identified as the source of the White Nile.
(http://tinyurl.com/qtxrk)
1862 Aug 1, James Henley
Thornwell (b.1812), Presbyterian preacher from South Carolina, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Henley_Thornwell)
1862 Aug 2, The US Army
Ambulance Corps was established by Maj. Gen. George McClellan.
(HN, 8/2/00)
1862 Aug 2, Union General John
Pope captured Orange Court House, Virginia.
(HN, 8/2/98)
1862 Aug 5, Battle of Baton
Rouge, LA.
(MC, 8/5/02)
1862 Aug 6, Confederate Army
ironclad "Arkansas" was badly damaged in Union attack.
(MC, 8/6/02)
1862 Aug 8, Minnesota’s 5th
Infantry fought the Sioux Indians in Redwood, Minn., and 24 soldiers
were killed.
(SFC, 2/7/03, p.A23)
1862 Aug 9, Hector Berlioz'
opera "Beatrice et Benedict," premiered in Baden-Baden.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1862 Aug 9, At Cedar Mountain,
Virginia, Confederate General "Stonewall" Jackson repelled an attack
by Union forces. Gen. Charles S. Winder was killed.
(HN, 8/9/98)(MC, 8/9/02)
1862 Aug 11, Carrie James Bond,
songwriter who wrote "I Love You Truly" and "A Perfect Day," was
born.
(HN, 8/10/98)
1862 Aug 11, President Abraham
Lincoln appointed Union General Henry Halleck to the position of
general in chief of the Union Army. [see Jul 11]
(HN, 8/10/98)
1862 Aug 12, Gen John Hunt
Morgan and his raiders capture Gallatin, TX.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1862 Aug 13, Confederate
General Nathan Bedford Forrest defeated a Union army under Thomas
Crittenden at Murfreesboro, Tennessee. [see Jul 13]
(HN, 8/13/98)
1863 Aug 13, Eugene Delacroix
(b.1798), French artist, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Delacroix)
1862 Aug 16, Amos Alonzo Stagg,
football pioneer, inventor of the tackling dummy, was born in West
Orange, New Jersey.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1862 Aug 18, Confederate
General J.E.B. Stuart’s headquarters was raided by Union troops of
the 5th New York and 1st Michigan cavalries.
(HN, 8/18/98)
1862 Aug 18, A Sioux Uprising
began uprising in Minnesota. It resulted in more than 800 white
settlers dead and 38 Sioux Indians condemned and hanged. The
Minnesota Uprising began when four young Sioux murdered five white
settlers at Acton. The Santee Sioux, who lived on a long, narrow
reservation on the south side of the Minnesota River, were reacting
to broken government promises and corrupt Indian agents. a military
court sentenced 303 Sioux to die, but President Abraham Lincoln
reduced the list. The 38 hangings took place on December 26, 1862,
in Mankato, Minn.
(MC, 8/18/02)(HNQ, 1/4/00)
1862 Aug 22, Claude Debussy
(d.1918), composer (La Mer, Clair de Lune), was born in St.
Germain-en-Laye.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1862 Aug 22, Santee Sioux
attacked Fort Ridgely, Minn.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1862 Aug 24, The C.S.S. Alabama
was commissioned at sea off Portugal's Azore Islands, beginning a
career that would see over 60 Union merchant vessels sunk or
destroyed by the Confederate raider. The ship was built in secret in
the in Liverpool shipyards, and a diplomatic crisis between the US
government and Britain ensued when the Union uncovered the ship’s
birth place.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1862 Aug 25, US Secretary of
War authorized Gen. Rufus Saxton to arm 5,000 slaves.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1862 Aug 25, Union and
Confederate troops skirmished at Waterloo Bridge, Virginia, during
the Second Bull Run Campaign.
(HN, 8/25/98)
1862 Aug 26, Confederate
General Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson encircled the Union Army under
General John Pope at the Second Battle of Bull Run.
(HN, 8/26/99)
1862 Aug 27, As the Second
Battle of Bull Run raged, Confederate soldiers attacked Loudoun
County, Virginia.
(HN, 8/27/98)
1862 Aug 28, Mistakenly
believing the Confederate Army to be in retreat, Union General John
Pope attacks, began the Battle of Groveten. Both sides sustained
heavy casualties.
(HN, 8/28/98)
1862 Aug 28, The Battle of
Thoroughfare Gap, VA.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1862 Aug 28, Confederate spy
Belle Boyd was released from Old Capital Prison in Washington, DC.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1862 Aug 29, P.M.B. Maurice
Maeterlinck, Belgium, poet (Blue Bird, Nobel 1911), was born.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1862 Aug 29, The US Bureau of
Engraving & Printing began operation.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1862 Aug 29, Union General John
Pope’s army was defeated by a smaller Confederate force at the
Second Battle of Bull Run.
(HN, 8/29/98)
1862 Aug 30, Union forces were
defeated by the Confederates at the Second Battle of Bull Run in
Manassas, Va. Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell fought at the Second Battle
of Manassas, which was also a Union defeat (the Union army in this
case was commanded by Maj. Gen. John Pope). McDowell was then
relieved of his command until he was sent to command the Department
of the Pacific in 1864, where he finished the war.
(AP, 8/30/97)(HNQ, 7/30/01)
1862 Aug 30, In the Battle of
Altamont, Tennessee, Confederates beat Union forces.
(MC, 8/30/01)
1862 Sep 1, A federal tax was
levied on tobacco, especially that grown in Confederate states.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1862 Sep 1, Battle at Chantilly
(Ox Hill), Virginia, left 2100 casualties.
(AM, 11/04, p.24)
1862 Sep 1, Oliver Tilden of
the Bronx was killed in the Civil War in Virginia.
(SC, 9/1/02)
1862 Sep 4, Robert E. Lee's
Confederate 50,000-man army invaded Maryland, starting the Antietam
Campaign. New York Tribune reporter George Smalley scooped the world
with his vivid account of the Battle of Antietam.
(HN, 9/4/98)(MC, 9/4/01)
1862 Sep 6, Stonewall Jackson
occupied Frederick, Maryland.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1862 Sep 9, Gen’l. Lee split
his army and sent Jackson to capture Harpers Ferry.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1862 Sep 11, O. Henry was born.
This was the pen name of William Sydney Porter, short story writer,
who wrote "The Gift of the Magi," and "The Last Leaf." The name was
taken from a French chemist, Ossian Henry, that he noticed while
working at a pharmacy.
(HN, 9/11/98)(SFEC, 9/3/00, Z1 p.2)
1862 Sep 12, The Battle of
Harper’s Ferry took place in West Virginia.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1862 Sep 13, Union troops in
Frederick, Maryland, discovered General Robert E. Lee’s attack plans
for the invasion of Maryland wrapped around a pack of cigars. They
gave the plans to General George B. McClellan who did nothing with
them for the next 14 hours.
(HN, 9/13/98)
1862 Sep 14, At the battles of
South Mountain and Crampton’s Gap, Maryland Union troops smashed
into the Confederates as they closed in on what would become the
Antietam battleground. Confederates delayed McClellan’s advance
against Lee.
(HN, 9/14/98)(AM, 11/04, p.28)
1862 Sep 14, A contingent of
Federal troops escaped from the beleaguered Harper's Ferry.
(www.nps.gov/hafe/jackson.htm)
1862 Sep 14, In San Francisco
some 3,000 people packed into Platt’s Music Hall at Bush and
Montgomery to hear Unitarian minister Starr King (1824-1864) speak
on behalf of the Sanitary Commission, a forerunner of the Red Cross.
His speech inspired businessmen to raise money and within 5 days
$100,000 was raised. In one year California raised some $500,000.
(SFC, 11/30/13, p.C3)
1862 Sep 15, Confederates
captured the Union weapon arsenal at Harpers Ferry, WV, securing the
rear of Robert E. Lee's forces in Maryland.
(HN, 9/15/99)
1862 Sep 15, John T. Wilder,
the Union commander at Munfordville, used unconventional methods to
stall Confederate General Braxton Bragg’s advance through Kentucky.
On September 15, Bragg arrived to find some 4,000 men behind
well-built defenses--far more than he had anticipated. He brought up
more units and surrounded the area, but instead of pressing his
advantage, agreed to a suggestion made by his subordinate, Maj. Gen.
Simon Bolivar Buckner. Buckner suggested that he be allowed to
parley with the garrison and convince them of the hopelessness of
their position. Bragg grudgingly acquiesced.
(HNQ, 4/26/01)
1862 Sep 16, "Fighting Joe"
Major General Joseph Hooker’s I Corps crossed Antietam Creek on to
strike the Confederates’ left flank.
(HN, 8/12/98)
1862 Sep 17, The Battle of
Antietam at Sharpsburg, Maryland, the bloodiest day in US history,
commenced. Fighting in the corn field, Bloody Lane and Burnside’s
Bridge raged all day as the Union and Confederate armies suffered a
combined 26,293 (23,585) casualties. New York Tribune reporter
George Smalley scooped the world with his vivid account of the
Battle of Antietam, also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg. During
the battle an entire Union corps spent most of the bloodiest single
day of the Civil War waiting to cross the creek over that bridge,
opposed by a contingent of Georgia riflemen. Late in the day
Gen. Ambrose Burnside sent his Union troops across the bridge in a
major disaster. The rest of the Union IX Corps followed, but by
day’s end, a Confederate flank attack sent the corps back across the
river. Over 23,000 [23,110] men, both Union and Confederate, were
killed or wounded. The battle resulted in about 10,000 Confederate
and 12,000 Union casualties. The next day, Robert E. Lee began his
retreat back across the Potomac River. 2,108 Union troops and 1,512
Confederates died. In 2002 James M. McPherson authored "Crossroads
of Freedom: Antietam: The Battle that changed the Course of the
Civil War."
(HN, 9/17/98)(HNPD, 9/17/98)(SFC, 7/7/96, T6)(AP,
9/17/97)(SFC, 9/22/01, p.A3)(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.D8)(WSJ, 9/17/02, p.D8)
1862 Sep 17, Sgt. William
McKinley and a single volunteer drove a wagon of hot coffee and warm
food through Confederate fire at Antietam to the men of the 23rd
Ohio regiment. Col. Rutherford B. Hayes promoted him to lieutenant
for his bravery and initiative.
(WSJ, 12/12/03, p.W9)
1862 Sep 17, Battle of
Cumberland Gap, Tenn., was evacuated by Federals.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1862 Sep 18, After waiting all
day for a Union attack which never came at Antietam, Confederate
General Robert E. Lee began a retreat out of Maryland and back to
Virginia. At Antietam, George McClellan and his ‘bodyguard’ dawdled
throughout a long ‘Fatal Thursday.’
(HN, 9/18/98)
1862 Sep 21, William Benjamin
Gould and 7 other black men stole a boat and rowed past Fort
Caswell, NC. They were picked up the next day by the Union warship
Cambridge. In 2002 Prof. W.B. Gould published his
great-grandfather’s diary "Dairy of a Contraband: The Civil War
Passage of a Black Sailor."
(SFC, 9/2/02, p.A1)
1862 Sep 21, 300 Indians were
sentenced to hang in Mankato, Minnesota.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1862 Sep 22, President Lincoln
announced at a cabinet meeting that he intended to issue the
Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in rebel states
should be free as of Jan. 1, 1863. President Abraham Lincoln brought
the issue of freedom to the forefront of the Civil War when he
delivered the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet, a few days
after the bloody Battle of Antietam. The proclamation stated that
slaves in any of the states in rebellion against the Union would be
freed if the states had not returned to the Union by January 1,
1863. After that, nearly 180,000 black soldiers enlisted to fight
the Confederates until the end of the war.
(SFE Mag., 2/12/95, p. 30)(AP, 9/22/97)(HNPD,
9/22/98)
1862 Sep 23, Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation was published in Northern Newspapers.
(MC, 9/23/01)
1862 Sep 24, President Abraham
Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus against anyone suspected
of being a Southern sympathizer.
(HN, 9/24/98)
1862 Sep 24, The Confederate
Congress adopted the confederacy seal.
(MC, 9/24/01)
1862 Sep 27, Louis Botha,
commander-in-chief of the Boar Army against the British and first
president of South Africa, was born.
(HN, 9/27/98)
1862 Sep 29, Union general
Jefferson C. Davis shot and killed a fellow general in a dispute at
a hotel during the Civil War. After a series of angry confrontations
with General William Nelson, Davis shot his superior officer to
death in a Louisville, Kentucky, hotel. Because of the scarcity of
officers needed to form a court-martial for a trial, Davis was never
charged with the crime and went on to build an extensive Civil War
combat record. Davis was of no relation to Confederate President
Jefferson Davis.
(HNQ, 3/20/00)
1862 Sep, The troops of the 1st
Louisiana Native Guards were free black men who lived in New
Orleans. When President Abraham Lincoln issued his preliminary
Emancipation Proclamation he invited black men in Confederate
territory to join the Union army. Union Major General Benjamin
Butler immediately mustered the 1st Louisiana Native Guards into
Federal service, making them the Union’s first black soldiers. They
had volunteered for state service in the Civil War, and served as a
home guard unit. When New Orleans fell to Union forces in April
1862, the black troops remained in the city and offered their
services to Butler.
(HNQ, 2/21/02)
1862 Oct 2, An Army under Union
General Joseph Hooker arrived in Bridgeport, Alabama to support the
Union forces at Chattanooga.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1862 Oct 3, At the Battle of
Corinth, Mississippi, a Union army defeated the Confederates.
(HN, 10/3/98)
1862 Oct 4, Edward Stratemeyer,
author, was born. He created the Hardy Boys, Rover Boys, Nancy Drew
and the Bobbsey Twins. The first series of books written/produced by
Stratemeyer was The Rover Boys, written under the pseudonym of
Arthur M. Winfield. There were 30 volumes, written between 1899 and
1926. The Bobbsey Twins series (Laura Lee Hope) was next, and is the
oldest "surviving" series, extending to 72 volumes, written between
1904 and 1979. Tom Swift, attributed to Victor Appleton, began in
1910 and there were 40 volumes before the series ended in 1941.
(There was also a Tom Swift, Jr. series, by Victor Appleton II.) The
Hardy Boys (Franklin W. Dixon, 85 volumes from 1927 to 1985) and
Nancy Drew (Carolyn Keene, 78 volumes from 1930 to 1985) are the
other best-known Stratemeyer books.
(HN,
10/4/00)(http://pw2.netcom.com/~drmike99/aboutbobbsey.html)
1862 Oct 4, Battle of Corinth,
Mississippi, ended.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1862 Oct 8, The Union was
victorious at the Battle of Perryville, the largest Civil War combat
to take place in Kentucky.
(HN, 10/8/98)
1862 Oct 8, Otto von Bismarck
became German republic chancellor.
(MC, 10/8/01)
1862 Oct 11, The Confederate
Congress in Richmond passed a draft law allowing anyone owning 20 or
more slaves to be exempt from military service. This law confirmed
many southerners opinion that they were in a ‘rich man’s war and a
poor man’s fight.’
(HN, 10/11/98)
1862 Oct 12, J.E.B. Stuart
completed his "2nd ride around McClellan."
(MC, 10/12/01)
1862 Oct 12, There was a
skirmish at Monocacy, Maryland.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1862 Oct 17, Battle of Leetown
and Thoroughfare Gap, Va.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1862 Oct 18, Morgan's raiders
captured federal garrison at Lexington, Ky.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1862 Oct 18, James Creighton
died of ruptured bladder caused from hitting a HR on Oct 14th.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1862 Oct 19, Auguste Lumiere,
French film pioneer, was born. He made the 1st film: "Workers
Leaving Lumiere Factory."
(MC, 10/19/01)
1862 Oct 22, Union troops
pushed 5,000 confederates out of Maysville, Ark., at the Second
Battle of Pea Ridge.
(HN, 10/22/98)
1862 Oct 22, Battle at Old Fort
Wayne, Indian Territory.
(MC, 10/22/01)
1862 Oct 22, Confederate troops
reconquered the Cumberland Gap in Tennessee.
(MC, 10/22/01)
1862 Oct 27, A Confederate
force was routed at the Battle of Labadieville, near Bayou Lafourche
in Louisiana. John Howard Payne’s haunting ‘Home, Sweet Home’ was
the Civil War soldier’s favorite song.
(HN, 10/27/98)
1862 Nov 3, There was a battle
between gunboats at Bayou Teche, Louisiana.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1862 Nov 4, Dr. Richard Gatling
received patent # 36,836 for his machine gun. In 2008 Julia Keller
authored “Mr. Gatling’s Terrible Marvel: The Gun That Changed
Everything and the Misunderstood Genius Who Invented It."
(www.civilwarhome.com/gatlinggun.htm)(Econ,
6/14/08, p.102)
1862 Nov 5, President Abraham
Lincoln relieved General George McClellan of command of the Union
Army of the Potomac and named Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside commander
of the Army of the Potomac.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McClellan)
1862 Nov 7, The body of exiled
Bahadur Shah Zafar II was lowered into an unmarked grave in Rangoon
(Burma-Myanmar). Zafar II, the last Mughal emperor in India, was
deposed in the 1857 sepoy mutiny. In 2006 William Dalrymple authored
“The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857."
(Econ, 11/11/06, p.96)
1862 Nov 9, General US Grant
issued orders to bar Jews from serving under him. The order was
quickly rescinded.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1862 Nov 11, Verdi's Opera "La
Forza Del Destino" premiered in St Petersburg, Russia.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1862 Nov 13, Lewis Carroll
wrote in his diary, "Began writing the fairy-tale of Alice—I hope to
finish it by Christmas."
(HN, 11/13/00)
1862 Nov 13, Battle of Holly
Spring, Miss.
(MC, 11/13/01)
1862 Nov 15, Gerhart Hauptmann,
German author (Before Dawn- Nobel 1912), was born.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1862 Nov 17, Union General
Burnside marched north out of Washington, D.C. to begin the
Fredericksburg Campaign.
(HN, 11/17/98)
1862 Nov 20, Confederate army
of Tennessee organized under Gen. Braxton Bragg.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1862 Nov 24, M. Levy published
Gustave Flaubert’s "Salammbo."
(MC, 11/24/01)
1862 Nov 27, George Armstrong
Custer met his future bride, Elizabeth Bacon, at a Thanksgiving
party.
(HN, 11/27/98)
1862 Nov 28, The Battle at Cane
Hill, Arkansas, left 475 casualties. In late November, Maj. Gen.
Thomas C. Hindman detached Brig. Gen. John Marmaduke's cavalry from
Van Buren north to occupy the Cane Hill area. Hearing of this
movement, Brig. Gen. James Blunt advanced to meet Marmaduke's
command and destroy it, if possible. The Union vanguard encountered
Col. Joe Shelby's brigade, which fought a delaying action to protect
their supply trains. Shelby gradually gave ground until establishing
a strong defensive perimeter on Cove Creek where he repulsed a
determined attack. The Federals withdrew to Cane Hill, while the
Confederates returned to Van Buren.
(http://www2.cr.nps.gov/abpp/battles/ar004.htm)
1862 Nov 28, Battle of Hooly
Spring, Ms.
(MC, 11/28/01)
1862 Nov, Jean Henri Dunant
(1828-1910) published "A Memory of Solferino." His ideas about
creation of a volunteer committee to care for war-wounded led to the
creation in 1863 of the Permanent International Committee for Relief
to Wounded Combatants, later called the International Red Cross.
Dunant, a Swiss businessman, had witnessed the plight of thousands
of wounded left helpless on the battlefield at Solferino, Italy, on
June 24, 1859. Organizing local volunteers to help, Dunant
brought aid to as many of the victims as he could.
(WUD, 1994, p.442)(HNQ, 9/16/99)(ON, 4/08, p.11)
1862 Dec 1, President Lincoln
gave the State of the Union message to the 37th Congress. “The
dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present… As
our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must
disenthrall ourselves."
(WSJ, 9/7/06, p.A20)
1862 Dec 3, Confederate rebels
attacked a Federal forage train on the Hardin Pike near Nashville,
Tenn.
(HN, 12/3/98)
1862 Dec 5, Union general
Ulysses Grant’s cavalry received a setback in an engagement on the
Mississippi Central Railroad at Coffeeville, Mississippi.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1862 Dec 6, President Lincoln
ordered the hanging of 39 of the 303 convicted Indians who
participated in the Sioux Uprising in Minnesota. They were to be
hanged on Dec. 26. The Dakota Indians were going hungry when food
and money from the federal government was not distributed as
promised. They led a massacre that left over 400 white people dead.
The uprising was put down and 300 Indians were sentenced to death.
Pres. Lincoln reduced the number to 39, who were hanged. The
government then nullified the 1851 treaty.
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A6)(HN, 12/6/98)
1862 Dec 7, Confederate forces
surprise an equal number of Union troops at the Battle of Prairie
Grove, Arkansas.
(HN, 12/7/99)
1862 Dec 8, Georges Feydeau,
French playwright (La Dame de Chez Maxim's), was born.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1862 Dec 10, U.S. House of
Representatives passed a bill creating the state of West Virginia.
(HN, 12/10/98)
1862 Dec 11, Union General
Burnside occupied Fredericksburg and prepared to attack the
Confederates under Robert E. Lee.
(HN, 12/11/98)
1862 Dec 12, The Union lost its
first ship to a torpedo, the USS Cairo, in the Yazoo River.
(HN, 12/12/98)
1862 Dec 13, Confederate forces
dealt Union troops a major defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg,
Va. The Battle of Fredericksburg ended at Marye’s Heights with the
bloody slaughter of Union troops, while Confederate President Davis
reviewed Braxton Bragg’s troops at Murfreesboro, Tenn. Burnside,
newly appointed commander of an army of over 120,000, planned to
cross the Rappahannock River and advance on the Confederate capital
of Richmond. Some 78,000 troops under Confederate General Robert E.
Lee took a strong position on the high ground near Fredericksburg,
Virginia. Burnside’s assault resulted in over 12,500 casualties for
the Union compared with about 5,000 for the entrenched Confederates.
Burnside was relieved of command the following month.
(WUD, 1994, p.565)(AP, 12/13/97)(HN,
12/13/98)(HNQ, 10/14/00)
1862 Dec 15, Nathan B. Forrest
crossed the Tennessee River at Clifton with 2,500 men to raid the
communications around Vicksburg.
(HN, 12/15/98)
1862 Dec 15, In New Orleans,
Union Major General Benjamin F. Butler turned his command over to
Nathaniel Banks. The citizens of New Orleans held farewell parties
for Butler, "The Beast," but only after he had already left. Maj.
Gen Benjamin Butler was given the unusual nickname "Spoons" due to
his apparent penchant for stealing the silver while occupying New
Orleans. He was also called "Beast" for alleged insults to the women
in the town. Both the names were coined by Confederates.
(HN, 12/15/98)(HNQ, 7/29/00)
1862 Dec 17, Maj. Gen. Ulysses
S. Grant issued General Order No. 11 designed to combat a Civil War
black market in cotton. Grant believed the trade was run primarily
by Jewish traders and ordered Jews expelled in his military
district. Pres. Lincoln rescinded the order a few weeks later. In
2012 Jonathan D. Sarna authored “When General Grant Expelled the
Jews."
(SSFC, 4/22/12, p.F3)
1862 Dec 18, Grant announced
the organization of his army in the West. Sherman, Hurlbut,
McPherson, and McClernand would be Corps Commanders.
(HN, 12/18/98)
1862 Dec 18, Nathan B. Forrest
engaged and defeated a Federal cavalry force near Lexington in his
continued effort to disrupt supply lines.
(HN, 12/18/98)
1862 Dec 18, Samuel and
Florence Baker departed Khartoum on their search for explorers John
Speke and James Grant.
(ON, 10/01, p.9)
1862 Dec 19, Nathan B. Forrest
tore up the railroads in Grant and Rosecrans' rear, causing
considerable delays in the movement of Union supplies.
(HN, 12/19/98)
1862 Dec 19, Skirmish at
Jackson-Salem Church, Tenn., left 80 casualties.
(MC, 12/19/01)
1862 Dec 20, Battle of Holly
Spring, MS. [see Nov 13]
(MC, 12/20/01)
1862 Dec 20, Brig-gen Nathan B.
Forrest occupied Trenton, Kentucky.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1862 Dec 20-Jan 3, The
Vicksburg campaign.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1862 Dec 21, U.S. Congress
authorized the Medal of Honor to be awarded to Navy personnel that
had distinguished themselves by their gallantry in action.
(HN, 12/21/98)
1862 Dec 22-Jan 2, Raid on
Morgan's: Bardstown to Elizabethtown, Ky.
(MC, 12/22/01)
1862 Dec 23, Union Gen. Ben
"Beast" Butler was proclaimed a "felon, outlaw & common enemy of
mankind" by Jefferson Davis.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1862 Dec 24, A Christmas
present arrived a day early for the Federal troops at Columbus, Ky.,
in the way of artillery on board the USS New Era.
(HN, 12/24/98)
1862 Dec 25, President and Mrs.
Lincoln visited hospitals in the Washington D.C. area on this
Christmas Day.
(HN, 12/25/98)
1862 Dec 25, John Hunt Morgan
and his raiders clashed with Union forces near Bear Wallow,
Kentucky. Fighting also occurred at Green’s Chapel.
(HN, 12/25/99)
1862 Dec 26, In Minnesota 38
Santee Sioux were hanged in Mankato for their part in the Sioux
Uprising. This marked the end of the US-Dakota War. In 2012 a
memorial was unveiled for the 38 hanged men, the largest mass
execution in US history.
(HN, 12/26/98)(SFC, 12/27/12, p.A8)
1862 Dec 26-28, Battle of
Dumfries, Va.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1862 Dec 27, Rosecrans’ army
moved slowly toward Bragg at Murfreesboro.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1862 Dec 27, Battle of
Chickasaw Bluffs, Miss. (Chickasaw Bayou), began.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1862 Dec 27, Battle of
Elizabethtown, KY.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1862 Dec 29, Battle of
Chickasaw Bayou was fought by Sherman’s troops in order to gain the
north side of Vicksburg. Confederate armies defeated Gen. Sherman.
(HN, 12/29/98)(MC, 12/29/01)
1862 Dec 29, The bowling ball
was invented.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1862 Dec 30, The draft of the
Emancipation Proclamation was finished and circulated around
Lincoln's cabinet for comment.
(HN, 12/30/98)
1862 Dec 31, President Lincoln
signed an act admitting West Virginia to the Union.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1862 Dec 31, Union General
William Rosecrans' army repelled two Confederate attacks at the
Battle of Murfreesboro (Stone's River).
(HN, 12/31/98)
1862 Dec 31, The USS Monitor
sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras, NC., while being towed by the
Rhode Island. 16 officers and seamen died. In 1973 scientists from
North Carolina’s Duke University discovered the deteriorating relic
16 miles from the coast, in 240 feet of water. In 1975 the site was
designated the nation’s first marine sanctuary, and it was the first
shipwreck to be named a National Historic Landmark in the United
States. In 2002 the turret was raised.
(SFC, 8/6/02, p.A2)(HNQ, 11/29/02)(ON, 10/08,
p.5)
1862 Dec, German-born
illustrator Thomas Nast, widely recognized as the father of
political cartooning, is also responsible for our modern-day concept
of Santa Claus. Nast, who came to the United States from Germany at
age 6, received his art education at New York's National Academy of
Design. At 15, he began working for Frank Leslie's Illustrated
Newspaper for $4 a week. During his long career, Nast illustrated
major news stories for many periodicals, but he is perhaps best
remembered for his imaginative Christmas drawings that first
appeared in Harper's Weekly in 1862 and continued for 30 years.
Inspired by Clement Moore's poem "Twas the Night Before Christmas,"
Nast pictured Santa Claus as a jolly, white-bearded elf who lived at
the North Pole and brought gifts only to good children. His drawings
also portrayed many modern symbols we associate with
Christmas--holly, toys under the Christmas tree and the
reindeer-drawn sleigh on a snowy roof.
(HNPD, 12/25/99)
1862 Julius Rosenwald (d.1932),
later president of Sears, Roebuck & Co., was born in
Springfield, Ill. By 1931 he had financed the construction of 5,295
schools throughout the South in association with Booker T.
Washington and William Baldwin Jr., a Boston railway executive and
founder of the Urban League.
(WSJ, 2/24/98, p.A22)(WSJ, 4/23/02, p.D7)
1862 Claude Monet (22) began
studying painting with Charles Gleyre, a retired artist in Paris.
(ON, 9/06, p.6)
1862 Sanford Robinson Gifford
painted "Kauterskill Clove, in the Catskills." The 9x8 inch painting
was auctioned in 1999 for $475,500 in NYC.
(WSJ, 7/9/99, p.W12)
1862 James Whistler painted
his: "Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl," a portrait of his
Irish mistress Joanna Hiffernan.
(WSJ, 1/2/06, p.D8)
1862 Mary Elizabeth Braddon
published her sensation novel "Lady Audley's Secret." It was the
first of its type and became a bestseller. Braddon was a former
actress with 5 illegitimate children by a publisher whose wife was
locked in an insane asylum.
(WSJ, 3/17/00, p.W8)
1862 William Brewer, surveyor,
authored “Up and Down California," a journal based on the first
survey of California.
(SSFC, 5/14/06, p.G9)
1862 Victor Hugo published "Les
Miserables." The novel covers events in France from 1815 to 1833. In
2004 Mario Vargas Llosa authored his book-length Spanish essay: “The
Temptation of the Impossible: Victor Hugo and ‘Les Miserables.’ The
English translation came out in 2007.
(WSJ, 4/30/98, p.A17)(SFC, 6/30/07, p.E2)
1862 Jerry Thomas authored “How
to Mix Drinks, or the Bon-Vivant’s Companion." It also became known
as the “Bar-Tenders Guide."
(WSJ, 3/10/07, p.P5)
1862 "Fathers and Sons" by
Turgenev was published.
(NH, 6/96, p.22)
1862 The most popular song of
the year was "Rally ‘Round the Flag."
(NH, 10/98, p.16)
1862 The Glee Club at the Univ.
of Pennsylvania was founded by eight undergraduates.
(WSJ, 12/16/96, p.A1)
1862 The Buffalo Fine Arts
Academy was founded in Buffalo, NY. In 1905 it opened the
Albright-Knox Art Gallery following a generous gift from Buffalo
entrepreneur and philanthropist John J. Albright.
(WSJ, 11/15/06,
p.D14)(www.albrightknox.org/geninfo.html)
1862 In Napa Valley, Ca., Jacob
Schram (1826-1905) purchases 200 acres on Diamond Mountain and
founded the Schramsberg Winery. He used Chinese laborers to clear
the forests, plant the vineyards and dig the caves to store his
wine. In 1965 Jack and Jamie Davies purchased the winery.
(SFEM, 10/27/96, p.40)(SFC, 12/22/05, p.F1)(SFC,
1/18/08, p.A12)
1862 Pres. Lincoln made Andrew
Johnson the military governor of Tennessee after Federal forces
captured Nashville.
(SFC, 12/21/98, p.A3)
1862 The Washington DC bordello
of Mary Ann Hall at 349 Maryland Ave. was rated at the top of a list
of 450 brothels catalogued by the office of the federal provost
marshal. The city had an estimated 5,000 prostitutes, 18 of whom
resided at the 3-story brick Hall house.
(SFEC, 4/18/99, p.A24)
1862 The dark clouds of civil
war gathered over the nation as two aggressive factions—the
Wide-Awakes and the Minutemen—plotted to gain political control of
Missouri and its most important city, St. Louis.
(HN, 7/29/98)
1862 The first US federal tax
on beer was levied to finance the Civil War.
(SFC, 8/2/06, p.G7)
1862 The US battleship
Monticello crashed trying to get past the US Navy and into Mobile
Bay during the Civil War after sailing from Havana. In 1969
Hurricane Camille uncovered wreckage near Fort Morgan, Alabama, that
some believed to be the Monticello, though others thought it was a
schooner that ran aground in 1933.
(AP, 9/20/08)
1862 Confederate General Earl
Van Dorn attacked Union forces at the Mississippi railroad town of
Corinth in an effort to help Braxton Bragg’s invasion of Kentucky.
With Union interest concentrated chiefly on Bragg’s invasion of
Kentucky, Union General Grant’s command was scattered about western
Tennessee and northern Mississippi in several garrisons. Impetuous
and aggressive (he was a former Indian fighter), Van Dorn evaluated
potential objectives before deciding to attack the strongest, the
one at Corinth, Miss. Two strategic railroads, the Mobile & Ohio
and the Memphis & Charleston, linked up there, and control of
the rails was, as always, a paramount concern in the war.
(HNQ, 4/19/01)
1862 The Rhea County Spartans,
an all-girl cavalry company in Tennessee, began as a lark during the
American Civil War, but soon attracted the attention of unamused
Union officers. The Rhea County Girls’ Company was created through a
combination of boredom and the desire to be a part of the war for
Southern independence. Almost all of the "sidesaddle soldiers" had
fathers or brothers in the Confederate military, and the young
ladies evidently felt frustrated because their gender prevented them
from enlisting. Since they could not actually join the Confederate
Army, they did the next best thing: They created an army of their
own.
(HNQ, 4/12/01)
1862 The Dakota Indians were
going hungry when food and money from the federal government was not
distributed as promised. They led a massacre that left over 400
white people dead. The uprising was put down and 300 Indians were
sentenced to death. Pres. Lincoln reduced the number to 39, who were
hanged. The government then nullified the 1851 treaty.
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A6)
1862 The Choctaw Indians issued
a 75 cent note and the Cherokee Indians issued a $1 bill.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.8)
1862 Austin, Nevada, was born
when a horse kicked loose a rock revealing rich silver ore.
(ACC, 2004)
1862 David Walley of New York
discovered natural hot springs about 90 miles south of Carson City.
(SSFC, 12/18/05, p.F4)
1862 The San Francisco Stock
and Bond Exchange was established by 19 founding members as a
marketplace for mining company stocks following the Comstock Lode
strike.
(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.I3)
1862 The Corners area by Mt.
Diablo, Ca., changed its name to Walnut Creek following the arrival
of a post office.
(SFCM, 8/24/03, p.7)(SFC, 7/17/06, p.B5)
1862 In southern California
Isaias Hellman founded the first synagogue in Los Angeles. It became
the Wilshire Boulevard Reform Temple.
(SSFC, 11/30/08, Books p.3)
1862 Rogers, Smith & Co. of
New Haven, Conn., organized to manufacture silver-plated holloware.
The company was sold in 1863 to Meriden Britannia Co., but the New
Haven operation continued to 1877.
(SFC, 11/29/06, p.G3)
1862 Frederick August Otto
Schwartz (FAO Schwartz) opened up a toy shop in Baltimore 6 years
after arriving in America from Germany. In 1870 he moved to New
York. In 1880 he moved to larger quarters on Union Square.
(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.F3)(WSJ, 11/21/03, p.B1)
1862 Mary Jane Patterson
(1840-1894) received a degree from Oberlin College, Ohio, becoming
the 1st black female college graduate in the US.
(SSFC, 2/15/04, p.C6)
1862 In Lone Pine, Ca.,
settlers shot it out with a local band of Paiute Indians. 11 Paiutes
were killed and 2 settlers were wounded.
(SFEC, 8/17/97, p.T9)
1862 The Pacific Mail Co.'s
Golden Gate steamer sank off Manzanillo. An English salvage company
recovered gold bullion and artifacts in 1928.
(SFC, 6/20/03, p.E2)
1862 The British Schooner Alma
was captured off the coast of North Carolina by the US brig Perry.
She is today called the Australia and is owned by the Woodfield Fish
and Oyster Co., of Galesville, Maryland.
(NG, Sept. 1939, J. Maloney p.356)
1862 In Australia Scotsman
explorer John McDouall Stuart crossed the continent from Adelaide to
Port Darwin.
(HNQ, 5/26/98)
1862 In Austria Julius Meinl
founded a coffee and food store that developed into a chain and
later Meinl Bank.
(Econ, 8/2/08, p.74)
1862 Britain legislated a
Companies Act that defined the limited-liability joint stock
company, and removed the restriction that they be established by an
act of Parliament.
(WSJ, 5/7/03, p.D10)
1862 In Britain Lord Kelvin
presented his theoretical calculation of the energy storage capacity
of the sun. The calculation led to an estimate of the sun’s age-
later called Kelvin time. His estimate was way too low due to lack
of knowledge on atomic energy.
(I&I, Penzias, p.157)
1862 William Banting, a London
undertaker, was the first dieter on record. He went from 253 pounds
to 153 on lean meat, fish and fruit.
(SFEC, 2/14/99, Z1 p.8)
1862 John Hanning Speke found a
river that issued from Lake Victoria to the north and impetuously
cabled the Royal Geographic Society in London, "...the Nile is
settled."
(NG, May 1985, R. Caputo, p.629)
1862 The East India House in
London, headquarters of the East India Company, was demolished.
(Econ, 12/17/11, p.111)
1862 By this time 75% of
Britain’s cotton originated in India.
(Econ, 1/3/15, p.68)
1862 In Canada Billy Barker, a
former British sailor, struck gold in an area called Williams Creek
in British Columbia (Canada). The strike gave birth to the town of
Barkerville.
(SSFC, 4/7/13, p.P4)
1862 Facundo Bacardi Masso
founded a rum business in Cuba.
(SFC, 9/9/08, p.E3)
1862 Empress Eugenie opened Le
Grand Hotel in Paris to celebrate French science and art.
(Econ, 12/21/13, p.101)
1862 Walter Murray Gibson
arrived at Lanai, Ha., to reorganize a Mormon colony and bought one
chief-owned plot for the church. Gibson was later excommunicated for
keeping the property in his name. He later bought other chief-owned
lands and leased property for sheep and goat ranching.
(SFC, 6/27/12, p.D6)
1862 The Baymen, named after
the Bay of Honduras, sought protection from their Spanish-speaking
neighbors as a British colony, British Honduras.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.T3)
1862 Two New Zealanders, who
married Hawaiian women, obtained a deed to Palmyra Atoll from King
Kamehameha V.
(SFC, 5/4/00, p.A9)
1862 Francisco Solano Lopez
(c1826-1870) became president of Paraguay following the death of his
father, Carlos Antonio Lopez..
(http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/L/Lopez-Fr.html)(Econ,
12/22/12, p.46)
1862 Peruvian slavers arrived
on Easter Island. Slaves that eventually returned brought smallpox.
(SSFC, 9/18/05, p.E14)
1862 Baron James Forester, a
wealthy Scottish port wine shipper, capsized on the Douro River in
Portugal and was dragged to the river bottom by his money belt full
of gold coins.
(SFEC, 1/12/97, p.T7)
1862 An earthquake in Russia’s
Lake Baikal region put 200 square km of lakeshore under water.
(Econ, 7/19/03, p.41)
1862 In Glasgow, Scotland, the
Kelvinside Parish Church was built. It was later converted to Oran
Mor, a west end performing arts center.
(SSFC, 2/10/13, p.H4)
1862 Swiss immigrants settled
in Montevideo, Uruguay, and formed an agricultural community known
as the Colonia Suiza.
(Hem., 2/96, p.26)
1862-1863 Louisa May Alcott, American author, went
to Washington, D.C., in the winter to serve as a nurse in the newly
established United States Sanitary Commission. She tended wounded
soldiers, but after only a few weeks she became ill. In accordance
with army medical practice of the time, Alcott was given large doses
of calomel, an emetic containing mercury, which rendered her a
semi-invalid. Alcott was a semi-invalid for the last 20 years of
life.
(HNQ, 12/29/98)
1862-1868 Bartolome Mitre served as Argentina’s
1st constitutional president.
(WSJ, 1/9/02, p.A14)
1862-1877 In China the Dungan Revolt was a mainly
ethnic war also known as the Hui Minorities War. The revolt arose
over a pricing dispute involving bamboo poles, when a Han merchant
selling to a Hui did not receive the amount demanded for the
goods. Total casualties of the conflict were
estimated at 8-12 million.
(http://tinyurl.com/ldphn6h)
1862-1893 David and John Jacob Decker founded and
ran the Decker Bros. piano manufacturing firm. Their first piano
patent was issued in 1859.
(SFC, 10/15/97, Z1 p.7)
1862-1906 Bitters bottles were manufactured in
Tiffin, Ohio and Omaha, Neb. to hold "American Life Bitters," an
alcoholic concoction of herbs and gin that was marketed as medicine.
(SFC, 6/3/98, Z1 p.6)
1862-1910 William Sydney Porter (aka O. Henry),
American short story writer: "Inject a few raisins of conversation
into the tasteless dough of existence."
(WUD, 1994, p.1120)(AP, 6/15/97)
1862-1922 Mori Ogai, Japanese writer. His work
included "The Wild Goose."
(MT, Fall ‘96, p.15)
1862-1935 William Ashley "Billy" Sunday, American
baseball player turned evangelist, is said to have said: If there is
no Hell, a good many preachers are obtaining money under false
pretenses. "Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more
than going to a garage makes you an automobile."
(AP, 10/19/97)(AP, 12/20/98)
1862-1944 Gerald Stanley Lee, American clergyman
and author: "America is a tune. It must be sung together."
(AP, 3/3/99)
1862-1944 Nellie Simmons Meier, famous American
palm reader. She lived most of her life in Indianapolis and studied
the palms of such people as actress Mary Pickford, boxer Gene
Tunney, Eleanor Roosevelt, Susan B. Anthony, and Amelia Erhart. She
donated her palm prints to the Library of Congress in 1938 after
publishing her 1937 best seller Lion’s Paws, a set of character
sketches based on the palm prints.
(Civil., Jul-Aug., ‘95, p.54-57)
1862-1947 Nicholas Murray Butler, American
educator. "Time was invented by Almighty God in order to give ideas
a chance." "The force that rules the world is conduct, whether it be
moral or immoral."
(AP, 4/5/97)(AP, 1/13/99)
1862-1956 In Grass Valley, California, the
Idaho-Maryland gold mine produced about 2.4 million ounces of gold.
The nearby Empire Mine produced 5.8 million ounces. In 2007 plans
were underway for re-opening the Idaho-Maryland mine.
(WSJ, 11/9/07, p.B2)
1863 Jan, 1, All slaves held in
rebellion territory in USA were made free by Abraham Lincoln's Sep
22, 1862, Emancipation Proclamation.
(HFA, ‘96, p.22)(V.D.-H.K.p.275)(AP, 1/1/98)(HN,
1/1/99)
1863 Jan 1, Confederate General
Braxton Bragg and Union General William Rosecrans readjusted their
troops as the Battle of Murfreesboro continued.
(HN, 1/1/99)
1863 Jan 1, The clipper ship
Noonday hit an uncharted rock off the coast of San Francisco and
sank in 240 feet of water. All hands were rescued and the rock was
named Noonday.
(SFC, 9/17/14, p.A10)
1863 Jan 2, In the second day
of hard fighting at Stone's River, near Murfreesboro, Tenn., Union
troops defeated the Confederates. The battle, which began Dec 31,
involved 80,000 troops and left 24,000 casualties.
(HN, 1/2/99)(AM, 11/04, p.28)
1863 Jan 4, General Halleck, by
direction of President Lincoln, ordered U.S. Grant to revoke his
infamous General Order No. 11 that expelled Jews from his
operational area.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1863 Jan 4, Roller skates with
4 wheels were patented by James Plimpton of NY.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1863 Jan 8, Construction on the
Central Pacific Railroad from Sacramento heading east was started.
With pull from Gov. Leland Stanford, extensive government backing
was obtained along with federal land grants in California that
totaled 11.6 million acres, 11.4% of the state. $59 mil in 30-year
railroad bonds was backed by the government and not paid back until
1909. The Northern Pacific Railroad was built by Nelson Bennett
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.D2)(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A22)
1863 Jan 10, London's
Metropolitan, the world's first underground passenger railway,
opened to the public. The first stretch of rail had opened the day
before. It was nationalized in 1948. In 2004 Christian Wolmar
authored “The Subterranean Railway: How the London Underground was
Built and How it Changed the City Forever."
(AP, 1/10/98)(HN, 1/10/99)(Econ, 1/22/05,
p.81)(AP, 1/9/13)
1863 Jan 11, Union forces
captured Arkansas Post, or Ft. Hindman, Arkansas.
(MC, 1/11/02)
1863 Jan 11, The Confederate
ship Alabama under Capt. Semmes flew a British flag and lured the
USS Hatteras out of Galveston harbor. The Hatteras was quickly sunk.
(ON, 9/01, p.10)
1863 Jan 12, President Davis
delivered his "State of Confederacy" address.
(MC, 1/12/02)
1863 Jan, 13, The black 1st
Kansas Regiment was mustered in as a battalion.
(Smith., 4/95, p.14)
1863 Jan 13, Thomas Crapper
pioneered a one-piece pedestal flushing toilet.
(MC, 1/13/02)
1863 Jan 17, David Lloyd George
(d.1945), British Prime Minister, was born. First Earl Lloyd-George
of Dwyfor, English statesman: "It is always too late, or too little,
or both. And that is the road to disaster."
(AP, 8/13/97)(HN, 1/17/99)
1863 Jan 22, In an attempt to
out flank Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, General Ambrose
Burnside led his army on a march north to Fredericksburg, but foul
weather bogged his army down in what became known as "Mud March."
(HN, 1/22/99)
1863 Jan 22, The interim
Lithuanian government in Warsaw announced an uprising against
Russian rule. The uprising aspired to restore the Polish-Lithuanian
state and was supported by large numbers of peasants.
(DrEE, 9/14/96, p.4)(LHC, 1/22/03)
1863 Jan 25, Maj. Gen. Joseph
Hooker assumed command and undertook the reorganization of the
demoralized Army of the Potomac. He commanded the Army of the
Potomac during the Battle of Chancellorsville. By April, he thought
he was ready to face Lee‘s Army of Northern Virginia. [see Jan 26]
(HNQ, 9/20/00)
1863 Jan 25, Battle of
Kingston, NC.
(MC, 1/25/02)
1863 Jan 25, James Morrill
(1824-1865), a British citizen, ended years of living among
Australian Aborigines after a shipwreck in 1846.
(http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/morrill-james-2484)
1863 Jan 26, President Lincoln
named General Joseph Hooker to replace Burnside as commander of the
Army of the Potomac. [see Jan 25]
(HN, 1/26/99)
1863 Jan 31, The 1st South
Carolina Volunteers, later called the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops was
officially recognized. Components of the regiment had been in
training since early 1962.
(Smith., 4/95, p.14)(MC, 1/31/02)
1863 Feb 1, A committee in
Vilnius issued a manifesto and took up a leadership role for a
national revolution.
(LHC, 2/1/03)
1863 Feb 3, Samuel Clemens
became Mark Twain for 1st time. In Nevada the Territorial Enterprise
in Comstock printed some humorous letters from a reader named
“Josh." The editor hired the man, who was Samuel Clemens, for $25 a
week. Clemens accepted and changed his pen name to Mark Twain. Sam
had dropped the penname "Josh" and first signed himself "Mark Twain"
in a letter written on January 31, 1863. The Territorial Enterprise
published the letter in its Tuesday, February 3, 1863 issue
(http://www.twainquotes.com/18630203t.html).
(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.6)
1863 Feb 9, A fire extinguisher
was patented by Alanson Crane.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1863 Feb 9, Henri Dunant
(1828-1910) addressed the Geneva Society for Public Welfare and
asked the members to form a volunteer society to aid wounded
soldiers. The Intl. Committee of Red Cross (Nobel 1917, 1944, 1963)
was formed in Geneva, Switz. The red cross design based on the Swiss
flag with the colors reversed.
(ON, 4/08, p.11)(www.redcross.org)(SFC, 6/20/06,
p.A4)
1863 Feb 10, P.T. Barnum’s star
midgets, Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren, are married.
(HN, 2/10/97)
1863 Feb 15, Samuel and
Florence Baker encountered John Speke and James Grant at the
frontier village of Gondokoro (southern Sudan). Speke and Grant said
they had found the Nile’s headwaters at a lake they named Victoria
(Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda).
(ON, 10/01, p.9)
1863 Feb 24, Arizona was
organized as a territory.
(AP, 2/24/98)
1863 Feb 24, Confederate Gen.
Nathan Bedford Forrest made a raid on Brentwood, Tennessee.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1863 Feb 25, The Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) was created as a bureau of the US
Department of the Treasury by the National Currency Act. The OCC was
charged with responsibility for organizing and administering a
system of nationally chartered banks and a uniform national
currency. It was passed to create a market in government bonds
needed to finance the Civil War. The act required that bank notes
issued by commercial banks be uniform in appearance and that 90% be
backed by collateral consisting of US Treasury securities. [see
1881-1890, currency decline] Prior to the Civil War virtually the
only currency was local and issued by banks. The government issued
"greenbacks" to finance the Civil War." The 1863 NCA was superseded
by the National Bank Act of 1864.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bank_Act)(WSJ,11/24/95,
p.A-8)(WSJ, 6/27/96, p.B1)(Wired, 10/96, p.143)(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A1)
1863 Feb 26, Pres. Lincoln
signed a National Currency Act.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1863 Feb 28, Four Union
gunboats destroyed the CSS Nashville near Fort McAllister, Ga.
Popular during the Crimean War, the floating battery was revived by
hard-pressed Confederates because the popular gunboats were not
capable of doing the things that the batteries could do.
(HN, 2/28/98)
1863 Mar 2, The US
Congress passed the False Claims Act to protect the government from
being ripped off by suppliers outfitting the Union army. It is often
referred to as the "Lincoln Law," because it was passed under the
administration of President Abraham Lincoln.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_Claims_Act)(Econ, 8/30/14, p.22)
1863 Mar 2, Congress authorized
track width of 4'-8½" for Union Pacific RR.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1863 Mar 3, President Abraham
Lincoln signed the conscription act compelling U.S. citizens to
report for duty in the Civil War or pay $300.00. 86,724 men paid the
exemption cost to avoid service. The inequality of this arrangement
led to the Draft Riots in New York.
(HN, 3/3/99)(HNQ, 10/18/00)(SSFC, 2/8/15, p.N5)
1863 Mar 3, Abraham Lincoln
approved a charter for National Academy of Sciences.
(www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ABOUT_main_page)
1863 Mar 3, Free city delivery
of mail was authorized by the U.S. Postal Service on this day. It
replaced zone postage and 449 letter carriers were hired.
(HC, Internet, 3/3/98)(SC, 3/3/02)
1863 Mar 3, Congress authorized
a US mint at Carson City, NV, and Gold certificates as currency.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1863 Mar 3, Federal ironclad
ships bombed Fort McAllister, Georgia.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1863 Mar 3, Idaho Territory
formed.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1863 Mar 4, Battle of
Thompson's Station, Tennessee.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1863 Mar 9, U.S. Grant was
appointed commander-in-chief of the Union forces.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1863 Mar 11, A naval engagement
occurred between the CSS Alabama and the USS Hatteras.
(HN, 3/11/98)
1863 Mar 11, Union troops under
General Ulysses S. Grant gave up their preparations to take
Vicksburg after failing to pass Fort Pemberton, north of Vicksburg.
(HN, 3/11/99)
1863 Mar 11, A
Lithuanian ruling group replaced a committee for the lead in an
uprising.
(LHC,3/11/03)
1863 Mar 12, President
Jefferson Davis delivered his State of the Confederacy address.
(HN, 3/12/98)
1863 Mar 14, Asbury Harpending
(24) of Kentucky, Ridgely Greathouse of Kentucky and Alfred Rubery
of Britain set sail from San Francisco with 20 fighting men aboard
the J.M. Chapman on an expedition to intercept outbound Panama
steamers loaded with gold and silver and send the money to the
Confederacy. They were quickly intercepted, taken to Alcatraz, and
found guilty of high treason. Harpending was granted amnesty after
four months in jail.
(SFC, 3/15/14, p.D2)
1863 Mar 17, The Battle of
Kelly's Ford, Va., was fought.
(http://americancivilwar.com/statepic/va/va029.html)
1863 Mar 18, Confederate women
rioted in Salisbury, N.C. to protest the lack of flour and salt in
the South.
(HN, 3/18/00)
1863 Mar 20, Battle of
Pensacola, Florida- evacuated by Federals.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1863 Mar 25, US Sec. of War
Edward Stanton awarded Corp. William Pittenger of the 2nd Ohio
Regiment and 5 other Union soldiers the first US Medals of Honor.
Pittenger had been a member of Andrews Raiders who stole the
locomotive “General" in Georgia on April 12, 1862. Civilian spy
James Andrews and 7 other were hanged in 1862 following a
Confederate court martial.
(ON, 8/08, p.12)
1863 Mar 25, There was a
skirmish at Brentwood, Tennessee.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1863 Mar 26, Samuel and
Florence Baker departed Gondokoro (southern Sudan) to find a lake
called Luta N’Zige, through which flowed a branch of the Nile.
(ON, 10/01, p.9)
1863 Mar 26, Henry Royce,
founder (Rolls-Royce Limited in 1884), was born. [see Mar 27]
(SS, 3/26/02)
1863 Mar 26, Voters in West
Virginia approved the gradual emancipation of slaves.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1863 Mar 27, Sir Henry Royce,
Rolls Royce founder, was born. [see Mar 26]
(HN, 3/27/98)
1863 Mar 27, Confederate Pres.
Jefferson Davis called for this to be a day of fasting and prayer.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1863 Mar 31, Battle of Grand
Gulf, MS & Dinwiddie Court House, VA.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1863 Apr 1, First wartime
conscription law went into effect in the U.S.
(HN, 4/1/98)
1863 Apr 2, In Richmond, Va., a
large crowd of hungry women from one of Richmond's working-class
neighborhoods demanded bread from Governor John Letcher. When the
governor did not respond favorably to the rioters' demands, the
women marched down Main Street, shouting "Bread" as they made their
way to the commissary, where they smashed store windows and grabbed
food and anything else they could get their hands on. Not until the
mob faced President Davis and his troops did the rampage end. Varina
Howell Davis wrote an account of the riots after her husbands death
in 1889.
(HNQ, 5/8/02)(AH, 6/02, p.24)
1863 Apr 7, Battle of
Charleston, SC. The Federal fleet attack on Fort Sumter failed.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1863 Apr 10, Rebel Gen. Earl
Van Dorn attacked at Franklin, Tenn.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1863 Apr 11, Battle of Suffolk,
VA (Norfleet House).
(MC, 4/11/02)
1863 Apr 13, Battle of Irish
Bend, LA (Ft. Bisland). (MC, 4/13/02)
1863 Apr 13, Hospital for
Ruptured and Crippled in NY became the 1st orthopedic hospital.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1863 Apr 14, William Bullock
patented a continuous-roll printing press.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1863 Apr 24, The Lieber code,
also known as Instructions for the Government of Armies of the
United States in the Field, General Order № 100, was signed by Pres.
Abraham Lincoln. It was named after the German-American jurist and
political philosopher Francis Lieber and dictated how soldiers
should conduct themselves in war time. It set a new norm of respect
for private property.
(Econ, 4/10/10,
p.64)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieber_Code)
1863 Apr 24, California’s “Act
to Provide for Improvement and Protection of Wharves, Docks, and
Waterfront in the City and Harbor of San Francisco" was signed by
Gov. Leland Stanford. It established the Board of State Harbor
Commissioners, an agency with the sole purpose of running the port
of San Francisco.
(SSFC, 4/28/13,
p.A2)(http://sfheritage.org/03StateHarbor.pdf)
1863 Apr 24, Skirmish at
Okolona, Birmingham, Mississippi (Grierson's Raid).
(MC, 4/24/02)
1863 Apr 27, Battle of
Streight's raid: Tuscumbia to Cedar Bluff, AL.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1863 Apr 27, The Army of the
Potomac began marching on Chancellorsville.
(HN, 4/27/98)
1863 Apr 29, William Randolph
Hearst (d.1951), American newspaper publisher, was born. He helped
launch the Spanish-American War. "Any man who has the brains to
think and the nerve to act for the benefit of the people of the
country is considered a radical by those who are content with
stagnation and willing to endure disaster." In 1998 Ben Proctor
authored "William Randolph Hearst – The Early Years, 1863-1910."
(HN, 4/29/99)(SFEM, 12/12/98, p.8)(AP, 5/1/99)
1863 Apr 29, Battle of
Chancellorsville, VA., (Fredericksburg, Wilderness Tavern). [see May
1]
(MC, 4/29/02)
1863 May 1, Confederate
congress passed a resolution to kill black Union soldiers.
(HN, 5/1/98)
1863 May 1, Confederate
"National Flag" replaced "Stars & Bars."
(MC, 5/1/02)
1863 May 1, The beginning of
the Battle of Chancellorsville, Va., in the East and the Battle Port
Gibson in the west. The new Union commander, ‘Fighting Joe’ Hooker,
planned to encircle Robert E. Lee at the Virginia crossroads hamlet
of Chancellorsville.
(HN, 5/1/98)
1863 May 2, The Confederates
smashed Hooker's flank and won a smashing victory at
Chancellorsville, Virginia. Confederate Gen’l. Stonewall Jackson was
shot by friendly fire as he returned to his lines; he died eight
days later. Captain J. Keith Boswell, an officer with Jackson, was
also shot and killed.
(HT, 3/97, p.48)(AP, 5/2/99)(HN, 5/2/99)
1863 May 3, Stonewall Jackson’s
arm was amputated and buried. Jackson told his medical director, Dr.
Hunter McGuire, "If the enemy does come, I am not afraid of them; I
have always been kind to their wounded, and I am sure they will be
kind to me." His words followed an order from Robert E. Lee to move
Jackson to Guiney's Station, fearing that nearby Federal troops
might capture him. Following perhaps his greatest performance,
leading a brilliant flanking maneuver against Union Major General
Joseph Hooker at Chancellorsville, he was mistakenly shot by his own
troops while scouting ahead of their lines after dark. Jackson
sustained severe wounds to the left arm and minor wounds to the
right hand that later led to his death.
(HT, 3/97, p.52)(HNQ, 3/11/02)
1863 May 3, In Virginia the
Battle of Chancellorsville raged for a second day, as Confederate
General Robert E. Lee parried Union General Joseph T. Hooker's
thrusts. [see May 1-2]
(HN, 5/3/00)
1863 May 4, Battle of
Chancellorsville ended when the Union Army retreated.
(HN, 5/4/98)
1863 May 4, War correspondents
Richard T. Colburn, Junius H. Brown and Albert Dean Richardson were
captured enroute to Grant’s headquarters by a Confederate patrol
near Vicksburg, Miss. Colburn was soon released but Brown and
Richardson were sent to Libby Prison in Richmond, Va., and later to
Salisbury Prison in North Carolina. They managed to escape in Dec
1864 and arrived in Knoxville, Tenn., on Jan 13, 1865.
(ON, 4/03, p.12)
1863 May 5, Battle of Tupelo,
MS.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1863 May 10, Confederate
General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson (39) died 8 days after being shot
by friendly fire at Chancellorsville, Virginia. He had been a
professor at the Virginia Military Institute. Many historians
believe that he was the greatest commander of the Civil War.
Stonewall Jackson has three graves. Jackson‘s left arm, amputated
after it was shot twice during the Battle of Chancellorsville, has
its own grave near Chancellorsville, Virginia. Lexington, Virginia,
where he had lived with his wife, is the site of his original
resting place and the nearby monument where his remains were later
moved. James I. Robertson published a biography of Jackson in 1997:
"Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend."
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.D8)(HT, 3/97, p.48)(HNQ, 2/22/01)
1863 May 12, With a victory at
the Battle of Raymond, Mississippi, Grant closed in on Vicksburg.
(SC, internet, 5/12/97)(HN, 5/12/99)
1863 May 13, The 54th
Massachusetts was mustered in and was the first black regiment
recruited in the North; it suffered 109 battle deaths in the war.
(Smith., 4/95, p.14)
1863 May 14, Union General
Nathaniel Banks took his army out of Alexandria, Louisiana, and
headed towards Port Hudson along the Mississippi River. The fort was
considered the second most important strategic location on the
river, after Vicksburg.
(HN, 5/14/99)
1863 May 14, Battle of Jackson,
MS.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1863 May 16, At the Battle of
Champion's Hill, in Mississippi, the bloodiest action of the
Vicksburg Campaign, Union General Ulysses S. Grant repulsed the
Confederates, driving them into Vicksburg.
(HN, 5/16/99)
1863 May 17, Union General
Ulysses Grant continued his push towards Vicksburg at the Battle of
the Big Black River Bridge in Mississippi.
(HN, 5/17/99)
1863 May 18, Siege of
Vicksburg, MS.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1863 May 19, Union General
Ulysses S. Grant's first attack on Vicksburg, Miss., was repulsed.
(HN, 5/19/99)
1863 May 21, The siege on Port
Hudson, Louisiana, began.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1863 May 22, The US War Dept.
established the Bureau of Colored Troops.
(MC, 5/22/02)
1863 May 22, U.S. Grant’s
second attack on Vicksburg, Miss., failed and a siege began.
(HN, 5/22/98)
1863 May 24, Bushwackers led by
Captain William Marchbanks attacked a Federal militia party in
Nevada, Missouri.
(HN, 5/24/99)
1863 May 25, Federal
authorities in Tennessee turned over former Ohio congressman Clement
L. Vallandigham to the Confederates. President Abraham Lincoln had
changed his sentence to banishment from the United States after his
conviction of expressing alleged pro-Confederate sentiments.
(HN, 5/25/99)
1863 May 27, Siege of Port
Hudson, LA. [see May 21]
(MC, 5/27/02)
1863 May 28, The 54th
Massachusetts, the first black regiment from the North, left Boston
headed for Hilton Head, South Carolina, to fight in the Civil War.
(AP, 5/28/97)(HN, 5/28/99)
1863 Jun 2, Felix Weingartner,
conductor (Zara, Dalmatia), was born in Germany.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1863 Jun 3, Gen. Lee, with
75,000 Confederates, launched a second invasion of the North. On
June 3rd, Lee led his troops into Maryland and then Pennsylvania, to
meet the Army of the Potomac again, this time around a small town
called Gettysburg.
(HNQ, 9/22/00)
1863 Jun 4, David Batchelder
and a group of 27 armed men sailed from San Francisco to the
Farallon Islands in 3 boats to challenge the Egg Co. for bird eggs.
One man was killed and another died of wounds a few days later. In
1995 Peter White authored “The Farallon Islands: Sentinels of the
Golden Gate."
(SFC, 5/25/13, p.C3)
1863 Jun 5, CSS Alabama
captured the Talisman in the Mid-Atlantic.
(HN, 6/5/98)
1863 Jun 5, Battle of
Franklin's Crossing, VA (Deep Run).
(MC, 6/5/02)
1863 Jun 7, Mexico City was
captured by French troops.
(HN, 6/7/98)
1863 Jun 8, Residents of
Vicksburg, Miss., fled into caves as Grant’s army began shelling the
town.
(HN, 6/8/98)
1863 Jun 9, At the Battle of
Brandy Station in Virginia, Union and Confederate cavalries clashed.
This was the largest cavalry battle in the Civil War.
(HN, 6/9/01)
1863 Jun 10, At the Battle of
Brice's Crossroads in Mississippi, Confederate General Nathan
Bedford Forrest with 3,500 troops defeated the Union troops of
8,000.
(HN, 6/10/98)(MC, 6/10/02)
1863 Jun 13, Confederate forces
on their way to Gettysburg clashed with Union troops at the Second
Battle of Winchester, Virginia.
(HN, 6/13/98)
1863 Jun 15, The 2nd battle at
Winchester, Va., ended in Federal defeat with 1350 casualties.
(MC, 6/15/02)
1863 Jun 17, On the way to
Gettysburg, Union and Confederate forces skirmished at Point of
Rocks, Maryland.
(HN, 6/17/98)
1863 Jun 17, Battle of Aldie:
Confederates failed to drive back Union in Virginia.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1863 Jun 17, Travelers
Insurance Co. of Hartford, the 1st accident insurer, was chartered.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1863 Jun 18, After repeated
acts of insubordination, General John McClernand was relieved by
General Ulysses S. Grant during the siege of Vicksburg.
(HN, 6/18/98)
1863 Jun 19, Battle at
Middleburg Virginia (100+ casualties).
(DTnet, 6/19/97)
1863 Jun 20, West Virginia
became the 35th state.
(AP, 6/20/97)
1863 Jun 21, In the second day
of fighting, Confederate cavalry failed to dislodge a Union force at
the Battle of LaFourche Crossing in Louisiana.
(HN, 6/21/00)
1863 Jun 23, Confederate forces
overwhelmed a Union garrison at the Battle of Brasher City in
Louisiana.
(HN, 6/23/99)
1863 Jun 24, Planning an
invasion of Pennsylvania, Lee's army crossed the Potomac.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1863 Jun 25, Pres. Lincoln
chose US General George Meade to replace General Hooker, hoping he
would be more aggressive. [see Jun 28]
(MC, 6/25/02)
1863 Jun 26, Jubal Early and
his Confederate forces moved into Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
(HN, 6/26/98)
1863 Jun 27, There was a
skirmish at Fairfax Courthouse in Virginia.
(MC, 6/27/02)
1863 Jun 28, General Meade
replaced General Hooker three days before the Battle of Gettysburg.
General George Gordon Meade said "Well, I’ve been tried and
condemned without a hearing, and I suppose I shall have to go to
execution," in response to his appointment as head of the Union Army
of the Potomac during the Civil War. Within a week his army won the
Battle of Gettysburg, assuring Meade of a record of success superior
to all of his predecessors.
(HN, 6/28/98)(HNQ, 2/25/02)
1863 Jun 28, Officers of the
Confederate Army of Northern Virginia’s Second Corps were looking at
Harrisburg through field glasses from across the Susquehanna River
just a day or two before a developing battle at Gettysburg called
them away. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the Keystone State’s capital
was a major hub for rail traffic from every direction. Consequently,
it was also the point through which the hard, slow-burning coal used
by ships, locomotives, and furnaces traveled on its way from the
mines of north central Pennsylvania to military and industrial
customers. Philadelphia, an important ocean port east of Harrisburg
and connected to it by rail, would have been virtually defenseless
against an attack from its landward side. If Lee had taken
Harrisburg, he would also have been perfectly positioned to threaten
Washington, D.C., from the north.
(HNQ, 3/5/02)
1863 Jun 29, Battle at
Westminster, Maryland: Federal assault.
(MC, 6/29/02)
1863 Jun 29, George A. Custer
(23) was appointed Union Brevet Brig-general.
(MC, 6/29/02)
1863 Jun 29, Lee ordered his
forces to concentrate near Gettysburg, PN.
(MC, 6/29/02)
1863 Jun 30, Union and
Confederate cavalries clashed at Hanover, Pennsylvania.
(HN, 6/30/98)
1863 Jul 1, The opening
shot at the Battle of Gettysburg was at 7:30 a.m. In the first day's
fighting at Gettysburg, Federal forces retreated through the town
and dug in at Cemetery Ridge and Cemetery Hill. Gen. Robert E. Lee's
ordered Lt. Gen. Richard Ewell, "Take the hill if practicable, but
do not bring on a general engagement..." Books on the campaign
included "The Gettysburg Campaign, A Study in Command," by Edwin B.
Coddington and "Gettysburg: Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill," by Harry
W. Pfanz. The novel "While Gods and Generals" by Jeff Shaara, son of
Michael Shaara, describes the years leading up to the battle.
(HFA, '96, p.32)(AP, 7/1/97)(SFEC, 6/21/98,
p.D5)(HN, 7/1/98)
1863 Jul 1, John Fulton
Reynolds (42), Union general, died in battle at Gettysburg.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1863 Jul 1, The Dutch abolished
slavery in Suriname. The Dutch were among the last Europeans to
abolish slavery.
(AP, 7/2/03)
1863 Jul 2, Mrs. Lincoln was
thrown from her carriage and spent weeks recovering at the Anderson
Cottage, Washington DC. The seat assembly may have been sabotaged.
(SFC, 5/20/02, p.F10)
1863 Jul 2, The Union left
flank held at Little Round Top during 2nd day of the Battle of
Gettysburg. Union Gen. Daniel Sickles was severely wounded and had
his leg amputated. In 2002 Thomas Keneally authored "American
Scoundrel: The Life of the Notorious Civil War General Dan Sickles."
(WSJ, 3/29/02, p.W10)(SFC, 4/17/02, p.D1)(AH,
2/05, p.49)
1863 Jul 3, The last rebel
assault was repulsed at the Battle of Gettysburg at 4 p.m. The Civil
War’s Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania ended after three days in
a major victory for the North as Confederate troops retreated. The
last Confederate assault at Gettysburg was Pickett’s Charge against
the center of the Union line that left some 7,000 of 13,000 [15,000]
Confederate troops dead. Lt. Gen. James Longstreet gave Maj. Gen.
George Pickett the assent. General Lee took responsibility. The
Union and Confederate armies suffered an estimated 50-51 thousand
casualties in the battle. It was the bloodiest battle the country
had yet seen. Upon whom the responsibility for the South's failure
at Gettysburg rests has been widely debated, but five months after
the epic battle, Confederate General Robert E. Lee admitted, "I
thought my men were invincible." The fighting in the small
Pennsylvania town marked a pivotal point in the Union's ascent to
victory and helped decide the outcome of the Civil War. In 1974
Michael Shaara published "The Killer Angels," a novel about the
3-day battle.
(SFC, 7/7/96, T6)(SFC,2/17/97, p.A3)(AP,
7/3/97)(SFEC, 6/21/98, p.D5)(HN, 7/3/98)(WSJ, 9/11/98, p.W10)(HNPD,
7/6/99)
1863 Jul 3, Battle of
Donaldsonville, LA.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1863 Jul 4, Boise, Idaho, was
founded.
(Maggio, 98)
1863 Jul 4, General U.S.
Grant's Union army captured the Confederate town of Vicksburg after
a long siege during the Civil War.
(HN, 7/4/98)(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1863 Jul 4, General Lee’s army
limped toward Virginia after defeat at Gettysburg. 28,063 of 75,000
confederate soldiers were lost. General Meade’s army suffered 23,049
soldiers killed, wounded and missing.
(SFC, 7/7/96, T6)
1863 Jul 4, Paul Joseph Revere,
US grandson of Paul Revere, Union brig-gen, died from wounds at
Gettysburg.
(MC, 7/4/02)
1863 Jul 4, Failed Confederate
assault on Helena, Arkansas, left 640 casualties.
(Maggio, 98)
1863 Jul 4, Skirmish at
Smithburg, TN.
(Maggio, 98)
1863 Jul 5, Federal troops
occupied Vicksburg, Mississippi, and distributed supplies to the
citizens. The battles of Jackson and Birdsong Ferry, were fought in
Mississippi.
(HN, 7/5/98)(MC, 7/5/02)
1863 Jul 6, Vincent Strong
(b.1837), US Union brig-general, died from wounds at Gettysburg.
(MC, 6/17/02)(MC, 7/6/02)
1863 Jul 7, Confederate General
Robert E. Lee, in Hagerstown, Maryland, reported his defeat at
Gettysburg to President Jefferson Davis.
(HN, 7/7/98)
1863 Jul 7, The 1st military
draft was called by the US. It allowed exemptions for $100.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1863 Jul 7, Orders barring Jews
from serving under US Grant were revoked.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1863 Jul 8, Discouraged by the
surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Confederates in Port Hudson,
Louisiana, surrendered to Union forces.
(HN, 7/8/98)
1863 Jul 10, Clement Clarke
Moore (83), (alleged author of "'Twas the Night Before Xmas"), died
in NYC.
(MC, 7/10/02)
1863 Jul 10-Jul 16, In the
Battle of Jackson, MS, federals captured Jackson with 1000
casualties vs. 1339 for the Confederates.
(MC, 7/10/02)
1863 Jul 11, The Battle of Fort
Wager began as Union forces assaulted the Confederate battery on
Morris Island at the southern approach to Charleston Harbor.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_on_the_Battery_Wagner)
1863 Jul 13, Rioting against
the Civil War military draft erupted in New York City; about 1,000
people died over three days. Antiabolitionist Irish longshoremen
rampaged against blacks in the deadly Draft Riots in New York City
in response to Pres. Lincoln’s announcement of military
conscription. Mobs lynched a black man and torched the Colored
Orphan Asylum. The 2003 film "Gangs of New York" focused on this
event. In 2006 Barnet Schecter authored “The Devil’s Own Work," an
account of the riots.
(WSJ, 3/19/96, p.A-12)(AP, 7/13/97)(HN,
7/13/98)(WSJ, 8/2100, p.A14)(WSJ, 1/18/06, p.D13)
1863 Jul 13-15, Battle of
Tupelo, MS (Harrisburg).
(MC, 7/13/02)
1863 Jul 14, Jews of Holstein
Germany were granted equality.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1863 Jul 15, Confederate raider
Bill Anderson and his Bushwackers attacked Huntsville, Missouri,
stealing $45,000 from the local bank.
(HN, 7/15/99)
1863 Jul 18, A 2nd assault in
the Battle of Fort Wagner, SC, left US1500 and CS174 casualties.
Union troops of the Massachusetts 54th Infantry assaulted Battery
Wagner on Morris Island in the harbor at Charleston, SC. The
ultimately unsuccessful attack, the 1st major engagement by a unit
of freed black soldiers, was later celebrated in the 1989 film
“Glory."
(www.awod.com/cwchas/wagner.html)(LP, Spring
2006, p.58)
1863 Jul 18, William Dorsey
Pender (29), US Confederate gen-maj, died of injuries.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1863 Jul 23, Bill Anderson and
his Confederate Bushwackers gutted the railway station at Renick,
Missouri.
(HN, 7/23/99)
1863 Jul 24, Battle at Battle
Mountain, Virginia.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1863 Jul 26, In the Battle of
Salineville, Ohio, John Hunt Morgan and 364 troops surrendered.
Confederate Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan and his cavalrymen
were captured during their daring raid into Ohio. Conditions for
Confederate soldiers housed in the Ohio State Penitentiary in
Columbus improved after General Morgan sent a written complaint to
the Buckeye State’s governor, David Todd. The Confederates were
placed in the dark, dank stone prison, where they were subject to
harsh punishment and forced to live on bread and water. Todd visited
the prison after receiving Morgan’s letter, and soon afterward
reforms were instituted to improve living conditions. Morgan did not
stay to savor the improvements, though. In November 1863, he and six
other Confederate officers escaped.
(HNQ, 9/20/01)(MC, 7/26/02)
1863 Jul 26, Samuel Houston
(70), 1st Pres. of Republic of Texas (1836-38, 41-44), died.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1863 Jul 27, William Lowndes
Yancey (b.1814), former Alabama state senator, and advocate of
states’ rights and slavery, died at his home near in Montgomery,
Alabama. In 2006 Eric H. Walther authored “William Lowndes Yancey
and the Coming of the Civil War."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lowndes_Yancey)
1863 Jul 28, Confederate John
Mosby began a series of attacks against General Meade's Army of the
Potomac as it tried to pursue General Robert E. Lee in Virginia's
Shenandoah Valley. Confederate Colonel John S. Mosby was known as
"The Gray Ghost." The rather ordinary looking Mosby led his Partisan
Rangers in guerilla warfare operations that continually confounded
Union commanders in the Piedmont region of Virginia. Learn more
about Mosby‘s Confederacy in Faquier and Loudoun counties.
(HN, 7/28/98)(HNQ, 7/15/00)
1863 Jul 30, Henry Ford
(d.1947), founder of the Ford Motor Company and developer of the
Model T, was born in Dearborn Township, Mich. He led American war
production with the gigantic facility at Willow Run. "You can’t
build a reputation on what you are going to do."
(AP, 8/16/97)(AP, 7/30/98)(HN, 7/30/98)
1863 Jul 30, Pres. Lincoln
issued his "eye-for-eye" order to shoot a rebel prisoner for every
black prisoner shot.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1863 Jul 30, George Crockett
Strong (29), US Union Gen-Maj, died of injuries.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1863 Jul, The Point Lookout
prison camp was begun under Gen'l. Gilman Marston with 200
confederate soldiers in St. Mary’s County, 86 miles from Washington
DC. More than 4,000 Confederate soldiers perished in 18 months due
to privation and disease.
(WSJ, 3/26/96, p.A-19)
1863 Jul, The European public
first learned of Angkor in Cambodia from the posthumously published
journal of French naturalist Henri Mouhot.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)
1863 Aug 1, Battle of Little
Rock, AK, and start of the Chattanooga campaign.
(MC, 8/1/02)
1863 Aug 1, Cavalry action near
Brandy Station marked the end of Gettysburg Campaign.
(MC, 8/1/02)
1863 Aug 3, Governor Seymour
asked Pres. Lincoln to suspend the draft in NY.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1863 Aug 3, The Saratoga Race
Course opened in Saratoga Springs, NY.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saratoga_Race_Course)
1863 Aug 6, The CSS Alabama
captured the Federal ship Sea Bride near the Cape of Good Hope.
(HN, 8/6/98)
1863 Aug 8, Confederate
President Jefferson Davis refused General Robert E. Lee’s
resignation.
(HN, 8/8/98)
1863 Aug 12, 1st cargo of
lumber left Burrard Inlet in the Vancouver, BC area.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1863 Aug 14, Ernest L. Thayer,
author of the poem "Casey at the Bat," was born.
(HN, 8/14/98)
1863 Aug 16, Chickamauga
campaign took place in GA. Union General William S. Rosecrans moved
his army south from Tullahoma, Tennessee to attack Confederate
forces in Chattanooga.
(HN, 8/16/99)(MC, 8/16/02)
1863 Aug 17, Federal batteries
and ships bombarded South Carolina’s Fort Sumter in Charleston
harbor during the Civil War, but the Confederates managed to hold on
despite several days of pounding.
(HN, 8/17/98)(AP, 8/17/08)
1863 Aug 21, William Clarke
Quantrill (d.1865), a pro-Confederate guerrilla fighter during the
American Civil War, attacked Lawrence, Kansas, with a force
estimated at anywhere from 200 to 450 raiders. Though Senator Lane,
a prime target of the raid, managed to escape through a cornfield in
his nightshirt, the bushwhackers killed an estimated 150-200 men and
boys, dragging many from their homes to kill them before their
families. When Quantrill rode out at 9 a.m., most of Lawrence's
buildings had been burned, including all but two businesses; his
raiders looted indiscriminately and also robbed the town's bank. The
raid would become notorious in the North as one of the most vicious
atrocities of the Civil War.
(HN,
8/21/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Quantrill)
1863 Aug 23, Union batteries
ceased their first bombardment of Fort Sumter, leaving it a mass of
rubble but still unconquered by the Northern besiegers.
(HN, 8/23/00)
1863 Aug 26, Battle of Rocky
Gap, WV, (White Sulphur Springs).
(MC, 8/26/02)
1863 Sep 1, RR and ferry
connections between SF and Oakland were inaugurated. Southern
Pacific had begun running steam trains in the East Bay this year.
(SC, 9/1/02)(SFC, 3/22/14, p.D2)
1863 Sep 1, 6th Ohio Cavalry
ambush at Barbees Crossroads, Virginia.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1863 Sep 6, After 59 day siege,
confederates evacuated Ft Wagner, SC.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1863 Sep 8, Federal troops
reconquered the Cumberland Gap, Tennessee.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1863 Sep 8, Battle of Telford's
Depot, Ten.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1863 Sep 8, Confederate
Lieutenant Dick Dowling thwarted a Union naval landing at Sabine
Pass, northeast of Galveston, Texas.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1863 Sep 9, The Union Army of
the Cumberland passed through Chattanooga as they chased after the
retreating Confederates following the Battle of Cumberland Gap.
(HN, 9/9/98)(MC, 9/9/01)
1863 Sep 13, The Loudoun County
Rangers routed a company of Confederate cavalry at Catoctin Mountain
in Virginia.
(HN, 9/13/99)
1863 Sep 13, Franz von Hipper,
German naval commander at the Battle of Jutland in World War I, was
born.
(HN, 9/13/98)
1863 Sep 17, The Robinson
family under widow Eliza Sinclair arrived in Honolulu. They had
moved to British Columbia from New Zealand in June, but were advised
to relocate to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii).
(www.clansinclairusa.org/articles/march2001/elizabeth.php)
1863 Sep 18, Union cavalry
troops clashed with a group of Confederates at Chickamauga Creek.
(HN, 9/18/99)
1863 Sep 19, In Georgia, the
two-day Battle of Chickamauga began as Union troops under George
Thomas clashed with Confederates under Nathan Bedford Forrest.
(HN, 9/19/98)
1863 Sep 20, Union troops under
George Thomas prevented the Union defeat at Chickamauga from
becoming a rout, earning him the nickname "the Rock of Chickamauga."
Thomas stayed and fought even after his commander, William
Rosecrans, retreated to Chattanooga. President Abraham Lincoln later
appointed Thomas as Rosecrans‘ successor. Armed with their new,
lethal seven-shot Spencer rifles, Wilder’s Lightning Brigade was all
that stood between the Union Army and the looming disaster at
Chickamauga Creek. The bloody battle of Chickamauga was the
costliest two-day battle of the entire war.
(HN, 9/20/98)(HN, 11/4/98)(HNQ, 9/29/00)
1863 Sep 20, Jakob Grimm,
writer, died at 78.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1863 Sep 21, Union troops under
Major Gen’l. William S. Rosecrans defeated at Chickamauga sought
refuge in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which was then besieged by
Confederate troops. There they lost 10,000 horses and mules to
starvation.
(HT, 4/97, p.52)(HN, 9/21/98)
1863 Sep 23, Mary Church
Terrell, educator, political activist, and first president of the
National Association of Colored Women, was born in Memphis,
Tennessee. An 1884 graduate of Oberlin College, America's first
college to admit women and amongst the first to admit students of
all races, Terrell was one of the first American women of African
descent to graduate from college. She earned her master's degree
from Oberlin in 1888.
(http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/today.html)
1863 Sep 23, The Confederate
siege of Chattanooga began.
(MC, 9/23/01)
1863 Sep 26, James M. Wells, a
Union cavalry lieutenant from Michigan, was captured by Confederate
cavalry and sent to Libby Prison in Richmond, Va.
(ON, 3/01, p.7)
1863 Sep 27, Jo Shelby's
cavalry in action at Moffat's Station, Arkansas.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1863 Sep 30, Reinhard von
Scheer, German admiral who commanded the German fleet at the Battle
of Jutland, was born.
(HN, 9/30/98)
1863 Sep 30, The George Bizet
(1838-1875) opera "Les Pecheurs de Perles" (Pearl Fishers) premiered
in Paris.
(www.operaphilly.com/03-04/bizet-bio.shtml)
1863 Oct 1, 5 Russian warships
were welcomed in NYC.
(MC, 10/1/01)
1863 Oct 3, President Lincoln
declared the last Thursday in November, Thanksgiving Day. Credit for
establishing Thanksgiving as a national holiday is usually given to
Sarah J. Hale, editor and founder of the Ladies' Magazine in Boston.
Her editorials in the magazine and letters to President Lincoln
urging the formal establishment of a national holiday of
Thanksgiving resulted in Lincoln's proclamation, which designated
the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day. Later presidents
followed this example, with the exception of Franklin D. Roosevelt,
who in 1939 proclaimed Thanksgiving Day a week earlier--on the
fourth, not the last, Thursday of November--in effort to encourage
more holiday shopping. In 1941 Congress adopted a joint resolution,
permanently setting the date of Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday
of November.
(AP, 10/3/97)(HN, 11/26/98)(HNPD, 11/26/98)(HN,
11/25/99)
1863 Oct 5, Confederate sub
David damaged the Union ship Ironsides.
(MC, 10/5/01)
1863 Oct 9, Confederate cavalry
raiders returned to Chattanooga having attacked Union General
William Rosecrans’ supply and communication lines all around east
Tennessee.
(HN, 10/9/98)
1863 Oct 9, Battle of Brady
Station, Va. (Culpeper Court House, Bristoe Station).
(MC, 10/9/01)
1863 Oct 10, The first
telegraph line to Denver was completed.
(HN, 10/10/98)
1863 Oct 10, The Skirmish at
Blue Springs, Tennessee, resulted in 166 casualties.
(MC, 10/10/01)
1863 Oct 11, Skirmish at
Rheatown, Henderson's Mill, Tennessee.
(MC, 10/11/01)
1863 Oct 15, For the second
time, the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley sank during a practice
dive in Charleston Harbor, S.C, this time drowning its inventor
along with seven crew members. The 40-foot Hunley sank in August
with five sailors who had volunteered to test it.
(Historynet, 10/15/98)(SFC, 3/12/99, p.A3)
1863 Oct 16, Grant was given
command of Union forces in West. [see Oct 17]
(MC, 10/16/01)
1863 Oct 17, General Ulysses S.
Grant was named overall Union Commander of the West. [see Oct 16]
(HN, 10/17/98)
1863 Oct 18, Battle of
Charlestown in WV.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1863 Oct 19, Gen’l. Grant
ordered Major Gen’l. George Thomas to replace Major Gen’l. Rosecrans
and Major Gen’l. Joseph Hooker arrived at Chattanooga with 20,000
fresh Federals from Virginia.
(HT, 4/97, p.56)
1863 Oct 23, Gen’l. Grant
arrived at Chattanooga. [see Oct 24]
(HT, 4/97, p.56)
1863 Oct 24, General Ulysses S.
Grant arrived in Chattanooga, Tennessee to find the Union Army there
starving. [see Oct 23]
(HN, 10/24/98)
1863 Oct 28-29, In a
rare night attack, Confederates under Gen. James Longstreet attacked
a Federal force near Chattanooga in the Battle of Wauhatchie,
Tennessee. Longstreet hoped to cut the Federal supply line, the
“cracker line," but failed. The principal commanders were: Maj. Gen.
Joseph Hooker [US] and Brig. Gen. Micah Jenkins [CS]. Estimated
causalities: 828 total (US 420; CS 408).
(HN,
10/28/98)(http://www2.cr.nps.gov/abpp/battles/tn021.htm)
1863 Oct, 7,000 soldiers were
cramped into Point Lookout Union prison for Confederate soldiers.
(WSJ, 3/26/96, p.A-19)
1863 Nov 4, From the main
Confederate Army at Chattanooga, Tenn., Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's
troops were sent northeast to besiege Knoxville.
(HN, 11/4/98)
1863 Nov 6, A Union force
surrounded and scattered defending Confederates at the Battle of
Droop Mountain, in West Virginia.
(HN, 11/6/99)
1863
Nov 6, The Battle of Rogersville took place at Big Creek in Hawkins
County, Tennessee. Union troops, under the command of Col. Israel
Garrard, faced Confederates under the overall command of Brig. Gen.
William E. Jones. Confederates won and sent prisoners sent to Libby
Prison in Richmond, Virginia.
(http://johnsettles.com/roger.htm)
1863 Nov 7, The Battle
of Rappahannock Station, Va., was fought.
(http://www2.cr.nps.gov/abpp/battles/va043.htm)
1863 Nov 12, Confederate
General James Longstreet arrived at Loudon, Tennessee to assist the
attack on Union General Ambrose Burnside’s troops at Knoxville.
(HN, 11/12/98)
1863 Nov 14, Leo H.A. Baekeland
(d.1944), Belgian-born US chemist (bakelite), was born in Ghent.
(www.zephyrus.co.uk/galen.html)
1863 Nov 14, Gen Nathan Bedford
Forrest was assigned to command of West Tennessee.
(MC, 11/14/01)
1863 Nov 14, There was a
skirmish at Danville, Mississippi.
(MC, 11/14/01)
1863 cNov 15, Major Gen’l.
William Tecumseh Sherman arrived at Chattanooga from Mississippi
with 16,000 reinforcements.
(HT, 4/97, p.56)
1863 Nov 16, At the Battle of
Campbell's Station, Ten., there were 492 causalities.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1863 Nov 17, Lincoln began the
1st draft of his Gettysburg Address.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1863 Nov 17-Dec 4th, Battle of
Knoxville, Ten.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1863 Nov 19, President Lincoln
delivered the Gettysburg Address as he dedicated a national cemetery
at the site of the Civil War battlefield in Pennsylvania. Lincoln
had been asked to deliver a few "appropriate remarks" to the crowd
at the dedication of the National Cemetery at the site of the Battle
of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. His address was almost ignored in the
wake of the lengthy oration by main speaker Edwin Everett, the
former governor of Massachusetts. In fact, Lincoln's speech was over
before many in the crowd were even aware that he was speaking.
Lincoln concluded his speech with this vow: "We here highly resolve
that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under
God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the
earth."
(http://condor.stcloudstate.edu/~brixr01/theTIMEMACHINE.html)(AP,
11/19/97)(ON, 8/07, p.1)
1863 Nov 23, At Chattanooga
Gen’l. Thomas’ men drove the Confederates from Orchard Knob. Union
forces won the Battle of Orchard Knob, Tenn. The Battle of
Chattanooga, one of the most decisive battles of the American Civil
War, also began in Tennessee.
(HN, 11/23/01)
1863 Nov 23, A patent was
granted for a process of making color photographs.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1863 Nov 24, In the Battle
Above the Clouds, Union Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker's forces took
Lookout Mountain, near Chattanooga, Tenn. The battle for Lookout
Mountain was fought in a layer of fog whose lower level began at the
Cravens House, used as Rebel headquarters. Gen’l. Hooker later
commissioned painter James Walker to render a picture of the battle
for $20,000.
(HFA, ‘96, p.42)(HT, 4/97, p.56)(HN, 11/24/98)
1863 Nov 25, The Union ended
the siege of Chattanooga, Tenn., with the Battle of Missionary
Ridge, Tenn.
(HN, 11/25/98)
1863 Nov 26, The first of our
modern annual Thanksgivings was held following the Oct 3
proclamation of Pres. Lincoln to assign the last Thursday in Nov for
this purpose.
(HN, 11/26/98)(HNPD, 11/26/98)
1863 Nov 27, Battle of Payne's
Farm, Va.
(MC, 11/27/01)
1863 Nov 29, The Battle of Fort
Sanders, Knoxville, Tenn., ended in Confederate withdrawal. There
were 8-900 causalities.
(HN, 11/29/98)(MC, 11/29/01)
1863 Nov, In Pennsylvania the
Harrisburg Patriot and Union newspaper described Pres. Lincoln’s
speech at Gettysburg as “silly remarks" that deserved a “veil of
oblivion." In 2013 the Patriot-News of Harrisburg retracted the
editorial penned by its predecessor.
(SFC, 11/15/13, p.A7)
1863 Dec 1, Oliver Herford,
American humorist and poet, was born. He wrote "Cupid's Fair Weather
Book" and "The Deb's Dictionary."
(HN, 12/1/99)
1863 Dec 1, Belle Boyd, a
Confederate spy, was released from prison in Washington.
(HN, 12/1/98)
1863 Dec 2, Charles Ringling,
one of the 7 Ringling brothers of circus fame, was born. Of the 7
Ringling brothers, five were involved in the founding of the famous
Ringling Brothers Circus. The 5 Ringling brothers who founded the
circus were Albert, Otto, Alfred, Charles and John. Two other
Ringling brothers were never associated with the circus, which began
as a wagon show in 1884. In 1907 they bought the Barnum & Bailey
Circus and after 1918 called their circus the Ringling Brothers and
Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows. John Ringling’s son, John
Ringling North, sold the circus to interests outside of the family
in 1967.
(HN, 12/2/00)(HNQ, 1/22/03)
1863 Dec 2, General Braxton
Bragg turned over command of the Army of Tennessee to General
William Hardee at Dalton, Ga.
(HN, 12/2/98)
1863 Dec 3, Confederate General
Longstreet abandoned his siege at Knoxville, Ten., and moved his
army east and north toward Greeneville. This withdrawal marked the
end of the Fall Campaign in Tennessee.
(HN, 12/3/98)(MC, 12/3/01)
1863 Dec 4, Seven solid days of
bombardment ended at Charleston, S.C. The Union fired some 1,307
rounds.
(HN, 12/4/99)
1863 Dec 6, The monitor
Weehawken sank in the Charleston Harbor.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1863 Dec 7, Outlaw George Ives,
an alleged member of an outlaw gang known as the "Innocents," robbed
and then killed Nick Thiebalt in the Ruby Valley of what would
become Montana.
(HN, 12/7/98)
1863 Dec 8, President Lincoln
announced his plan for the Reconstruction of the South. President
Lincoln offered amnesty for confederate deserters.
(AP, 12/8/97)(MC, 12/8/01)
1863 Dec 8, Averell’s cavalry
destroyed railroads in the southwestern part of West Virginia.
(HN, 12/8/98)
1863 Dec 8, A Jesuit church in
Chile caught fire and 2,500 died in a panic.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1863 Dec 9, Major General John
G. Foster replaced Major General Ambrose E. Burnside as Commander of
the Department of Ohio.
(HN, 12/9/98)
1863 Dec 11, Union gunboats
Restless, Bloomer and Caroline entered St. Andrew’s Bay, Fla., and
began bombardment of both Confederate Quarters and Saltworks.
(HN, 12/11/98)
1863 Dec 12, Edvard Munch
(d.1944), Norwegian artist (The Scream), was born.
(WUD, 1994 p.941)(NH, 6/00, p.20)(HN, 12/12/00)
1863 Dec 12, Orders were given
in Richmond that no more supplies from the Union should be received
by Federal prisoners.
(HN, 12/12/98)
1863 Dec 14, The widow of
Confederate General B.H. Helm was given amnesty by President Lincoln
after she swore allegiance to the Union. Mrs. Helm was the
half-sister of Mary Todd Lincoln.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1863 Dec 14, Longstreet
attacked Union troops at Bean’s Station, Tenn.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1863 Dec 16, Confederate
General Joseph Johnston took command of the Army of Tennessee,
replacing Lt. General William Hardee.
(HN, 12/16/98)
1863 Albert Bierstadt created
his painting "Rocky Mountains, Landers Peak."
(SSFC, 8/4/02, p.M2)
1863 Johan Barthold Jongkind
created his painting " Port of Honfleur at Evening."
(WSJ, 12/3/03, p.D12)
1863 George Richmond, R.A.,
painted the portrait "Maharani ‘Chund Kowr’ alias Rani Jindan" in
India.
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.14)(SFC, 2/7/98, p.E1)
1863 Auguste Rodin began his
sculpture masterpiece "Mask of the Man With the Broken Nose."
(WSJ, 4/1/97, p.A16)
1863 The Paris Salon des
Refuses was a group show of artists rejected by the mavens of the
official salon. The hit and scandal of the show was Edouard Manet’s
"Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe" which depicted a happy foursome picnicking
in the woods with the two women undressed. One of the women was
Victorine Meurent, a professional model. Other refused artists
included Cezanne, Pissarro, and other impressionists.
(WSJ, 6/14/95, p.A-14)(Econ, 1/26/13, p.76)
1863 George Frederic Watts
painted "Choosing."
(WSJ, 2/19/97, p.A15)
1863 Charles Dodgson, aka Lewis
Carroll, published "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland." [see Dodgson
in 1832]
(WSJ, 11/9/95, p.A-20)
1863 T.H. Huxley published his
exposition of Darwinism in his lectures to working men: "On Our
Knowledge of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature."
(NH, 5/96, p.22)
1863 Jules Verne (1828-1905)
authored his novel “Five Weeks in a Balloon." This was his first
published book.
(WSJ, 9/18/07, p.D8)
1763 Voltaire authored his
"Treatise on Tolerance." In 2015 it began climbing the French best
seller list in the wake of attacks by French-born Islamic
extremists.
(AP, 1/28/15)
1863 The first San Francisco
Cliff House was built by real estate tycoon Charles Butler as a
dining establishment for well-to-do families. The 160-acre site had
been used as a potato farm by a man named chambers. It was purchased
in 1881 by Adolph Sutro. The Cliff House burned down in 1894 and was
rebuilt. It again burned down in 1907 and rebuilt in 1909.
(SFC, 1/7/97, p.B1)(SFC, 4/14/99, Z1 p.4)(SFC,
4/5/14, p.C1)
1863 The Sears-Ferris House was
built in Carson City, Nev. It was the boyhood home of Gale Ferris
(1859-1896), the inventor of the Ferris Wheel.
(SSFC, 11/19/06, p.F10)
1863 Ellen White of Maine,
founder of the 7th Day Adventists, testified against tobacco,
spirituous liquors, snuff, tea, coffee, flesh-meats, butter, spices,
rich cakes, mince pies, large amounts of salt and all exciting
substances used as articles of food.
(SFC, 9/29/00, p.W17)
1863 In Indianapolis the Crown
Hill cemetery was established.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.T6)
1863 Walker Rankin Sr. founded
the 31,000 acre Quarter Circle U Rankin Ranch in the Tehachapi
Mountains of Kern County, Ca.
(SFEC, 7/5/98, p.T6)
1863 The Mütter Museum was
founded as part of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia was an
educational service for practicing physicians.
(NW, 11/18/02, p.14)
1863 Fitz Hugh Ludlow, author
of the 1857 book "The Hasheesh Eater," arrived in SF by the Overland
Stagecoach. He rode with painter Albert Bierstadt who married
Ludlow's wife in 1864. Ludlow wrote an account of his travels titled
"The heart of the Continent." In 1999 Donald P. Dulchinos published
"Pioneer of Inner Space: The Life of Fitz Hugh Ludlow, Hasheesh
Eater."
(SFEC, 1/24/99, BR p.4)
1863 Abraham Lincoln sent 450
newly freed slaves to Haiti’s Ile-à-Vache to found a colony, though
most gave up and returned home a year later.
(Reuters, 4/6/14)
1863 Treasury Sec. Hugh
McCulloch lamented that America’s monetary system "is unfitted for a
commercial country like ours."
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A1)
1863 The Treaty of Ruby Valley
with the Western Shoshone Indians assured their ownership of
property that later became a US nuclear test site. The treaty stated
that the presence of US settlements will not negate Indian
sovereignty.
(SFC, 7/12/97, p.E4)(SFEC, 8/29/99, Z1 p.7)
1863 The US government paid a
group of Nez Perce Indians $265,000 for some 6 million acres in the
area of Lewiston, Oregon.
(ON, 3/04, p.1)
1863 James Garfield was elected
to Congress.
(HNQ, 8/3/02)
1863 Civil war ships, the Dot,
the Charm and the Paul Jones, were scuttled on a tributary to the
Big Muddy during the Confederate retreat from Vicksburg.
(NOHY, Weiner, 3/90, p.88)
1863 At the Battle of
Chickamauga Creek, James B. Steedman seized his regiment’s colors
and dramatically led his wavering volunteers through a withering
barrage of Confederate fire. The Confederates won the battle, but
Steedman emerged unscathed to become Toledo’s most famous Civil War
hero.
(Smith., 4/1995, p.140)
1863 Pauline C. Fryer
(1833-1893) toured the South getting information for the Union, when
she was found out and ordered hung by Confederate General Braxton
Bragg. The Union troops took the town before the sentence could be
carried out. She then toured the North and wrote a book "Spy for the
Cumberland" (1864). President Lincoln gave her the Honorary rank of
Major.
(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6333443)
1863 Bloody Bill Anderson,
notorious Confederate guerilla leader, executed all the troopers in
a raid but one, Sergeant T.M. Goodman, who was left alive to deliver
news of the raid to Union officers.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A15)
1863 Dorence Atwater was
captured by the Confederates and his penmanship won him the job of
recording the name, company, regiment, disease, date of death, and
grave number of each prisoner who had died at Andersonville. Atwater
made a secret copy of the list and after the war wanted to publish
it so that the families of the dead would know where their loved
ones were buried. When the Civil War ended, former Union soldier
Dorence Atwater sought Clara Barton’s help to publish a list of
soldiers who had died while interned at the Confederate
Andersonville prison camp in Georgia. He approached Clara Barton,
who had already opened an office to locate missing Union soldiers.
When they tried to publish the death register, however, it resulted
in Atwater’s court marital and imprisonment.
(HNQ, 2/27/01)
1863 A woman was executed in
Texas. The next woman to face execution would be Karla Faye Tucker
in 1998.
(SFC, 2/5/97, p.A7)(WSJ, 2/3/98, p.A1)
1863 In northern California the
331-foot Knight’s Ferry Bridge was erected over the Stanislaus
River.
(KCSM TV, Calif. Gold, 10/10/11)
1863 In California the state’s
"black laws" were repealed.
(SFC, 7/18/98, p.A15)
1863 The California Teachers
Association was formed.
(SSFC, 1/23/05, p.C1)
1863 San Francisco’s St. Brigid
Church was founded. It was later rebuilt 6 times and transformed
from a wooden structure to a granite building with stained glass
imported from Dublin, Ireland. Construction had begun in 1860. The
SF Archdiocese closed the church in 1994.
(SFC, 6/30/99, p.A14)(SSFC, 8/14/11, p.F3)
1863 As San Francisco voters
considered a bond measure to help finance the Central Pacific
Railroad, Philip Stanford, brother of the governor, drove through
the city on election day "handing out money liberally’ to all who
would vote for the bond.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.D2)
1863 St. Mary’s College was
built on College Hill near Richland Ave and Mission St. It left San
Francisco for Oakland in 1889 and later moved to Moraga.
(SFC, 5/22/13, p.E6)
1863 The rails of the SF &
San Jose Railroad were completed to San Mateo. The Santa Clara depot
opened as the first station on the line.
(Ind, 10/31/98, p.5A)(SFC, 1/15/14, p.E1)
1863 A locomotive named the
Gov. Stanford was built by Richard Norris & Son in Philadelphia
and shipped around Cape Horn to California by schooner. It hauled
the Central Pacific’s 1st freight and passenger trains and later was
made a centerpiece at the California State Railroad Museum in
Sacramento.
(SSFC, 8/8/04, p.D5)(SSFC, 2/9/14, p.P2)
1863 John A. Frye (d.1911), a
shoemaker from England, founded the Frye Boot company in the US.
(www.bootbarn.com/blog/archives/2005/07/frye_boots_step.html).
(WSJ, 6/21/07, p.D1)
1863 Linus Yale Jr. introduced
the Double Dial bank lock. It revolutionized the vault business by
presenting 100 million possible combinations.
(WSJ, 12/2/06, p.P9)
1863 John D. Rockefeller and
partner Maurice Clark invested $4,000 to start an oil refinery.
(WSJ, 5/8/98, p.W10)
1863 Sir Francis Galton
theorized that the quality of human offspring would improve if
talented people married only other talented people. His ideas led to
the eugenics movement.
(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.D1)
1863 William Banting, An
English undertaker, printed his pamphlet “Letter on Corpulence," in
which he recommended a high protein diet that helped him loose
weight. The diet was based on one recently recommended for
diabetics.
(WSJ, 5/5/04, p.B1)
1863 Last Chance Gulch and
Alder Gulch were sites of major gold discoveries in the American
West. Each became a city and each served as capital of the territory
that eventually became the state of Montana. After the gold strikes,
Alder Gulch became Virginia City and Last Chance Gulch became
Helena.
(HNQ, 2/9/00)
1863 The star U Scorpii flared
up as a recurrent novae. It recurred in 1906 and 1936.
(SCTS, p.182)
1863 William Makepeace
Thackeray (b.1811), English novelist and satirist, died. His books,
which included "Vanity Fair," were published as monthly serials. In
2001 D.J. Taylor authored the biography "Thackeray: The Life of a
Literary Man." Thackeray was a chronicler of upward mobility.
(HN, 7/18/98)(WSJ, 11/12/01, p.A20)
1863 The sailing ship Star of
India was built as Euterpe, a full-rigged iron ship in Ramsey, Isle
of Man. In 1926, Star of India was sold to the Zoological Society of
San Diego, to be the centerpiece of a planned museum and aquarium.
The Great Depression and World War II caused that plan to be
canceled; it wasn't until 1957 that her restoration began.
(SFC, 11/13/06,
p.B1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_India_(ship))
1863 The British military
invaded Maori land in New Zealand in violation of the 1840 Treaty of
Waitangi.
(Fin. Post, 11/2/95, p.2)
1863 The Cayman Islands became
a British Caribbean territory.
(AP, 5/10/03)
1863 French forces captured
Puebla, Mexico.
(SFEC,11/9/97, p.T6)
1863 Ludwig II (1845-1886)
became king of Bavaria after his father died.
(SFEC, 4/9/00, p.T5)
1863 In Iran the Bahai faith
was founded by Hussain Ali (b. Nov 12, 1817 in Iran). It reflected
the attitudes of the Shiah sect with an emphasis on tolerance. Among
its principles are full equality between the sexes, universal
education and the establishment of a world of a world federal
system. The Baha'i Faith was founded in Iran by a man named
Baha'u'llah, which literally means "The Glory of God".
(WUD, 1994, p.111)(SFC, 10/30/98, p.A20)
1863 In Italy the Grand Hotel
des Iles Borromees opened in Stresa on Lake Maggiore.
(AMNHDT, 5/98)
1863 Radama II, ruler of
Madagascar, was assassinated. He was succeeded by his wife
Rasoherina, who was later succeeded by another of Radama's wives,
Ranavalona II.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radama_II_of_Madagascar)
1863 Prince Charles III built
the casino of Monte Carlo. The Monte Carlo Casino was built and
officially named the Sea Bathing & Circle of Foreigners Co.
(SFC, 1/8/97, p.C1)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)
1863 The Matica Slovenska was
founded as a cultural organization and nurtured the dream of Slovak
independence.
(WSJ, 4/26/96, p.A-11)
1863-1865 The 1998 novel "The Last Full Measure"
by Jeff Shaara covers the last years of the Civil War.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, p.D5)
1863-1865 In the Dominican Republic the conflict
of this period was known as the War of the Restoration. From
1844--after independence from Haitian—until 1899, the fledgling
republic was dominated by a series of dictatorial "men on
horseback." One of these strong men, Pedro Santana, endeavored to
stave off the threat of Haiti by returning the country to Spanish
control, with him as the Governor General beginning in 1861. The
Spanish troops eventually left, but the idea of the protectorate
remained, eventually leading to U.S. occupation in 1916.
(HNQ, 8/10/00)
1863-1867 Felix Nadar joined a group of men that
included Jules Verne to promote the development of flying machines,
which they envisioned as helicopters. They funded the building of
the Geant, the largest balloon yet flown that measured 147 feet in
circumference. It held 12 people in a two-story basket and flew over
a number of cities before crashing in Hanover injuring both Nadar
and his wife. This made him quite famous and he wrote two books
about his experiences.
(Smith., 5/95, p.79-80)
1863-1869 The Big Four Sacramento merchants,
Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, Collis P. Huntington, and Leland
Stanford put up the initial money for the Central Pacific Railroad.
Congress thought that silver from the Comstock mines would help
finance the Civil War and contracted the Central Pacific and Union
Pacific to build a trans-continental railroad.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.17)
1863-1869 In 2000 Stephen E. Ambrose authored
"Nothing Like It in the World, The Men Who Built the
Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869."
(SSFC, 12/17/00, BR p.10)
1863-1933 Constantine Cavafy, Greek poet. He
describes the coming of the barbarians and the fall of the Roman
empire as: "At least they were some kind of solution."
(V.D.-H.K.p.296)
1863-1936 James Harvey Robinson, American
historian: "We are incredibly heedless in the formation of our
beliefs, but find ourselves filled with an illicit passion for them
when anyone proposes to rob us of their companionship."
(AP, 11/23/97)
1863-1941 William Gibbs McAdoo, American
government official: "It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in
argument."
(AP, 6/11/97)
1863-1952 George Santayana, Spanish-American
philosopher: "What man strives to preserve, in preserving himself,
is something which he has never been at any particular moment."
"Miracles are propitious accidents, the natural causes of which are
too complicated to be readily understood."
(AP, 12/7/97)(HN, 7/18/98)
