List of events
Events from the year 1862 in the United States .
Incumbents
Governors and Lieutenant Governors
Governors
Governor of Alabama : John Gill Shorter (Democratic )
Governor of Arkansas : Henry Massey Rector (Democratic ) (until November 4), Harris Flanagin (Democratic ) (starting November 4)
Governor of California : John G. Downey (Democratic ) (until January 10), Leland Stanford (Republican ) (starting January 10)
Governor of Connecticut : William A. Buckingham (Republican )
Governor of Delaware : William Burton (Democratic )
Governor of Florida : John Milton (Democratic )
Governor of Georgia : Joseph E. Brown (Democratic )
Governor of Illinois : Richard Yates (Republican )
Governor of Indiana : Oliver P. Morton (Republican )
Governor of Iowa : Samuel J. Kirkwood (Republican )
Governor of Kansas : Charles L. Robinson (Republican )
Governor of Kentucky : Beriah Magoffin (Democratic ) (until August 18), James F. Robinson (Democratic ) (starting August 18)
Governor of Louisiana : Thomas Overton Moore (Democratic )
Governor of Maine : Israel Washburn, Jr. (Republican )
Governor of Maryland : Thomas H. Hicks (Know Nothing)/(Republican ) (until January 8), Augustus Bradford (Unionist ) (starting January 8)
Governor of Massachusetts : John Albion Andrew (Republican )
Governor of Michigan : Austin Blair (Republican )
Governor of Minnesota : Alexander Ramsey (Republican )
Governor of Mississippi : John J. Pettus (Democratic )
Governor of Missouri : Hamilton Rowan Gamble (Republican )
Governor of New Hampshire : Nathaniel S. Berry (Republican )
Governor of New Jersey : Charles Smith Olden (Republican )
Governor of New York : Edwin D. Morgan (Republican ) (until end of December 31)
Governor of North Carolina : Henry Toole Clark (Democratic ) (until September 8), Zebulon Baird Vance (Conservative) (starting September 8)
Governor of Ohio : William Dennison (Republican ) (until January 13), David Tod (Republican ) (starting January 13)
Governor of Oregon : John Whiteaker (Democratic ) (until September 10), A. C. Gibbs (Republican ) (starting September 10)
Governor of Pennsylvania : Andrew Gregg Curtin (Republican )
Governor of Rhode Island : William Sprague IV (Republican )
Governor of South Carolina : Francis Wilkinson Pickens (Democratic ) (until December 17), Milledge Luke Bonham (Democratic ) (starting December 17)
Governor of Tennessee : Isham G. Harris (Democratic ) (until March 12), Andrew Johnson (Unionist ) (starting March 12)
Governor of Texas : Francis R. Lubbock (Democratic )
Governor of Vermont : Frederick Holbrook (Republican )
Governor of Virginia : John Letcher (Democratic )
Governor of Wisconsin :
Lieutenant Governors
Events
January
January 3 – American Civil War : Battle of Cockpit Point fought in Virginia .
January 8 – American Civil War : Battle of Roan's Tan Yard in Missouri .
January 10 – John Gately Downey , 7th Governor of California , is succeeded by Amasa Leland Stanford .
January 19 – American Civil War : Battle of Mill Springs in Kentucky .
January 30 – The first US ironclad warship, USS Monitor , is launched.
January 31 – Alvan Graham Clark makes the first observation of Sirius B, a white dwarf star, through an eighteen-inch telescope at Northwestern University .
In the Great Flood of 1862 , San Francisco receives 24.49 inches (622.0 mm) of rainfall for January, its highest monthly rainfall on record, and the “rain year” total from July 1861 to June of 49.27 inches (1,251.5 mm) is also the highest ever.[1]
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
August 2 – American Civil War – Skirmish at Taberville, Missouri : Union forces force Confederate troops to march south, near Taberville.
August 5 – American Civil War – Battle of Baton Rouge : Along the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge, Louisiana , Confederate troops drive Union forces back into the city.
August 6 – American Civil War : The Confederate ironclad CSS Arkansas is scuttled on the Mississippi River after suffering damage in a battle with USS Essex near Baton Rouge, Louisiana .
August 9 – American Civil War – Battle of Cedar Mountain : At Cedar Mountain, Virginia, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson narrowly defeats Union forces under General John Pope .
August 14 – U. S. President Abraham Lincoln meets with a group of prominent African-Americans – the first time a President has done so. He suggests Black people should migrate to Africa or Central America , but this advice is rejected.
August 17 – Dakota War : A Lakota (Sioux) uprising begins in Minnesota as Lakota Sioux attack white settlements along the Minnesota River . They are overwhelmed by the U.S. military six weeks later.
August 19 – Dakota War : During an uprising in Minnesota , Lakota warriors decide not to attack heavily defended Fort Ridgely and instead turn to the settlement of New Ulm , killing white settlers along the way.
August 28–August 30 – American Civil War – Second Battle of Bull Run : Confederate forces inflict a crushing defeat on Union General John Pope .
August 29 – Bureau of Engraving and Printing is formed and begins operation.
September
October
November
December
December 1 – In his State of the Union Address , President Abraham Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered 10 weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation .
December 2 – The first U.S. Navy hospital ships enter service.
December 13 – Battle of Fredericksburg : The Union Army suffers massive casualties and abandons attempts to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia .
December 17 – General Order No. 11 , expelling all Jews in his military district, is issued by General Ulysses S. Grant (it is rescinded a few weeks later).
December 20 – American Civil War : Confederate Army Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest occupies Trenton, Kentucky .
December 26 – Dakota War : William D. Duly hangs 38 Dakota Sioux in Minnesota .
December 26–29 – American Civil War – Battle of Chickasaw Bayou : Another victory for the Confederate Army , outnumbered 2 to 1, results in 6 times as many Union casualties, defeating several assaults coordinated by Union commander William T. Sherman .
December 30 – USS Monitor sinks off Cape Hatteras , North Carolina .
December 31 – American Civil War : Union President Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union (thus dividing Virginia in two); meanwhile, the Battle of Stones River opens near Murfreesboro, Tennessee .
Undated
Ongoing
Births
January 9 – Carrie Clark Ward , silent film character actress (died 1926 )
January 15 – Loie Fuller , dancer (died 1928 )
January 24 – Edith Wharton , fiction writer (died 1937 )
January 31 – Robert Ford , American outlaw, killer of Jesse James (died 1892 )
February 7 – Bernard Maybeck , Arts and Crafts architect (died 1957 )
March 2 – John Jay Chapman , writer (died 1923 )
March 13 – Jane Delano , founder of the American Red Cross Nursing Service (died 1919 )
March 21 – Elmer Samuel Hosmer , composer (died 1945 )
March 24 – Frank Weston Benson , Impressionist painter (died 1951 )
March 25 – William E. Johnson , leader of the Anti-Saloon League (died 1950 )
April 2 – Nicholas Murray Butler , president of Columbia University and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (died 1947 )
April 11 – Charles Evans Hughes , lawyer and statesman (died 1948 )
April 26 – Edmund C. Tarbell , Impressionist painter (died 1938 )
May 6
Jeff Davis , 20th Governor of Arkansas from 1901 to 1907 and U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1907 to 1913 (died 1913 )
Oscar Underwood , U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1915 to 1927 (died 1929 )
May 18 – William Schmedtgen , illustrator (died 1936 )
May 27 – John Kendrick Bangs , author and satirist (died 1922 )
June 10 – Caroline Louise Dudley, later Mrs. Leslie Carter , stage and silent screen actress (died 1937 )
June 12 – James H. Brady , U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1913 to 1918 (died 1918 )
June 18 – Carolyn Wells , prolific novelist and poet (died 1942 )[4]
July 15 – Frank Putnam Flint , U.S. Senator from California from 1905 to 1911 (died 1929)
July 16 – Ida B. Wells , journalist, suffragist, and anti-lynching crusader (died 1931 )
July 29 – Robert Reid , Impressionist painter (died 1928 )
August 11 – Carrie Jacobs-Bond , songwriter (died 1946 )
August 15 – Adam Emory Albright , painter (died 1957)
August 16 – Amos Alonzo Stagg , footballer (died 1965 )
August 30 – Lawrence C. Phipps , U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1919 to 1931 (died 1958 )
September 7 – Edgar Speyer , international financier and philanthropist (died 1932 in Germany)
September 11
October 6
October 26 – Thomas J. Preston, Jr. , Professor of Archeology at Princeton University , second husband of Frances Cleveland (widow of President Grover Cleveland ) (died 1955 )
November 3 – Henry George, Jr. , politician (died 1916 )
November 14 – George Washington Vanderbilt II , businessman (died 1914 )
November 19 – Billy Sunday , baseball player, evangelist and prohibitionist (died 1935 )
December 3 – Charles Grafly , sculptor (died 1929)
December 5 – William Walker Atkinson , spiritual writer (died 1932 )
December 16 – John Fox, Jr. , novelist and journalist (died 1919 )
Deaths
January 10 – Samuel Colt , inventor (born 1814 )
January 18 – John Tyler , tenth President of the United States from 1841 to 1845, tenth Vice President of the United States from March to April 1841 (born 1790 )
February 11 – Luther V. Bell , psychiatric physician (born 1806 )
February 20 – William Wallace "Willie" Lincoln , third son of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln (born 1850 )
March 2 – Frederick W. Lander , railroad surveyor, poet and Union general, died of pneumonia contracted on active service (born 1821 )
March 18 – Charles Bird King , portrait artist who notably painted Native American delegates visiting Washington, D.C. (born 1785 )
April 6
April 10 – W. H. L. Wallace , Union general, died of wounds received at Battle of Shiloh (born 1821 )
April 12 – Theodore Frelinghuysen , running mate of Henry Clay in 1844 (born 1787 )
April 19 – Louis P. Harvey , Governor of Wisconsin (born 1820 )
May 6 – Henry David Thoreau , transcendentalist author and philosopher (born 1817 )
May 21
July 24 – Martin Van Buren , eighth President of the United States from 1837 to 1841, eighth Vice President of the United States from 1833 to 1837 (born 1782 )
August 30 – John Hugh Means , 64th Governor of South Carolina from 1850 to 1852 (born 1812 )
September 1 – Philip Kearny , United States Army officer (born 1815 )
September 18? – Septimus Norris , steam locomotive designer (born 1818 )
December 13 – Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb , Confederate general, killed during Battle of Fredericksburg (born 1823 )
December 18 – Barbara Fritchie , Civil War patriot (born 1766)
See also
References
Further reading
External links
1862 in North America
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