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Excerpts
from : Henry Carey - The Harmony of Interests: Agricultural, Manufacturing &
Commercial (1851)
1851: Crystal Palace In a glass
conservatory in London, the Great Exhibition begins. Among the 14,000 exhibits
were Colt's repeating pistol, Goodyear's vulcanized rubber, and Gail Borden's
meat biscuit. More than six million visitors from around the world attended. The
exhibition became a model for all World Fairs to come.
Excerpts
from : Henrey Carey - The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign. (1853)
Expansion
In The Pacific
Commodore Matthew C. Perry,
commander of the United States naval forces in the China seas, was a staunch
expansionist. Back in 1852 he warned President Fillmore that the British, who
had already taken control of Hong Kong and Singapore, would soon control all
trade in the area. Perry recommended that the United States take "active
measures to secure a number of ports of refuge" in Japan. President
Fillmore agreed with Perry. In 1853 he ordered the Commodore to open
negotiations with the Emperor of Japan.
Franklin
Pierce's
Inaugural
address, 1853 see also: 1853
- Franklin Pierce, Inaugural Address
1853
- Excerpts from : Henry Carey, The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign.
The
Abolitionist Hymn
Kansas-Nebraska
Act May 30, 1854 see also: 1854
- Kansas Nebraska Act
1854
- Abraham Lincoln Speaks on the Kansas Nebraska Act
Burning
of the Steamship City of Newark (1855)
1855-1863
- Julia Louisa Lovejoy, Selected Letters from Kansas
Excerpt
from : Frederick Law Olmsted: A journey in the Seaboard Slave States, 1856
Charles
Sumner, On the Crime Against Kansas, 1856
1856
- Scott vs. Sandford, The Dred Scott Case
1856
- Republican Party Platform
1857: Passenger Elevator Elisha Graves
Otis dramatically demonstrates his passenger elevator at the Crystal Palace
Exposition in New York by cutting the elevator's cables as it ascends a 300 foot
tower. Otis' unique safety braking system prevents the elevator from falling;
his business prospects rise.
James
Buchanan's
Inaugural
address, March 4, 1857 see also: 1857
- James Buchanan, Inaugural Address
Testimony
of the Canadian Fugitives
1858: Burglar Alarm
Edwin
T. Holmes of Boston begins to sell electric burglar alarms. Later, his workshop
will be used by Alexander Graham Bell as the young Bell pursues his invention of
the telephone. Holmes will be the first person to have a home telephone.
1858
- John Brown's Raid [in a Contemporary Newspaper]
1858
- William Seward, The Irrepressible Conflict, October 25
1859: Oil Well
Drilling
at Titusville, Pennsylvania, "Colonel" Edwin Drake strikes oil at a
depth of 69.5 feet. Prior to that, oil, which had been used mostly as a
lubricant and lamp fuel, had been obtained only at places where it seeped from
the ground. Western Pennsylvania witnesses the world's first oil boom.
1859
- Juan Nepomuceno Cortina to the inhabitants of the State of Texas, September
Juan
Cortina, Proclamation to the Mexicans of Texas, November
John
1859 - Brown's Final Address to the Court, November 2
An
Early Play About John Brown, from "The Kansas Historical
Quarterly"
Valley
Of The Shadow : The Valley Project details life
in two American communities - one Northern and one Southern - from the time of
John Brown's Raid through the era of Reconstruction. In this archive dating from
the Fall of 1859 to the fall of 1870 you may explore thousands of
original letters and diaries, newspapers and speeches, census and church
records, left by men and women in Augusta County, Virginia and Franklin County,
Pennsylvania. Giving voice to hundreds of individuals, the Valley Project tells
forgotten stories of life during the era of the Civil War.
1860: Repeating Rifle B.
Tyler Henry, chief designer for Oliver Fisher Winchester's arms company, adapts
a breech-loading rifle invented by Walter B. Hunt and creates a new lever action
repeating rifle. First known as the Henry, the rifle will soon be famous as
simply the Winchester.
1860
- Abraham Lincoln, Cooper Institute Address, February 27
1860
- Democratic Platform (Douglas Faction)
1860
- Democratic Platform (Breckenridge Faction)
1860
- Republican Platform 1860
"Lincoln
and Liberty" [lyrics of a campaign song]
And
music
Avalon:
Collection of Documents of the Confederate States of America
[This collection includes many short documents and major papers:]
November 6, 1860 - Abraham Lincoln, who
had declared "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half
free..." is elected president, the first Republican, receiving 180 of 303
possible electoral votes and 40 percent of the popular vote.
1860
- Amendments Proposed in Congress by Senator John J. Crittenden. December 18
Dec 20, 1860 - South Carolina secedes from the Union. Followed within two months by
Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas.
1860
- The Crittendon Compromise
A
Bill to Permit Free Persons of Color to Select Their Own Masters and Become
Slaves 1860-61 Senate Session
1861
- Confederate States of America. Constitution for the Provisional Government;
February 8
1861
- Amendments Proposed by the Peace Conference, February 8-27
Feb 9, 1861 - The Confederate States of
America is formed with Jefferson Davis, a West Point graduate and former U.S.
Army officer, as president.
1861
- A Resolution for the Appointment of Commissioners to the Government of the
United States of America; February 15
1861
- Jefferson Davis, Inaugural Address, February 18
1861
- Inaugural Address of the President of the Provisional Government of thee
Confederate States; February 18
1861
- Lincoln's 1st Inaugural Address
1861
- Letter of President Davis to President Lincoln February 27
1861
- Confederate States of America Veto Message February 28 (Slave Trade)
Henry
Maine. Ancient Law
1861
- Declarations of Causes of Secession [Civil War]
1861
- Ordinances of Secession The ordinances of secession were the
actual legal language by which the seceded states severed their connection with
the Federal Union. The declarations of causes, given elsewhere on this Web site,
are where they tended to disclose their reasons for doing so, although only four
states issued separate declarations of causes. The political theory of the time
among secessionists required that the act of secession be carried out by a
specially elected convention or by referendum. In this sense the "secessions" of
both Missouri and Kentucky were flawed, as neither was carried out in this
manner. The Missouri secession ordinance was passed by a rump legislature and
never approved by the people at large. The Kentucky secession ordinance was
adopted by a convention of 200 participants representing 65 counties, held in
Russellville.
1861
- South Carolina's Address to the Slaveholding States
1861
- Address of George Williamson to the Texas Secession Convention
1861
- Speech of E.S. Dargan to the Alabama Secession Convention
1861
- First Message of Governor Isham Harris to the Tennessee Assembly
1861
- Second Message of Governor Isham Harris to the Tennessee Assembly
March 4, 1861 - Abraham Lincoln is sworn
in as 16th President of the United States of America.
1861
- Constitution of the Confederate States of America; March 11
April 12, 1861 - At 4:30 a.m. Confederates
under Gen. Pierre
Beauregard open fire with 50 cannons upon Fort Sumter in Charleston,
South Carolina. The Civil War begins.
April 15, 1861 - President Lincoln issues
a Proclamation calling for 75,000 militiamen, and summoning a special session of
Congress for July 4. Robert E. Lee, son of a Revolutionary War hero, and a 25
year distinguished veteran of the United States Army and former Superintendent
of West Point, is offered command of the Union Army. Lee declines.
April 17, 1861 - Virginia secedes from the Union, followed within five weeks by Arkansas,
Tennessee, and North Carolina, thus forming an eleven state Confederacy with a
population of 9 million, including nearly 4 million slaves. The Union will soon
have 21 states and a population of over 20 million.
1861-
Proclamation of Jefferson Davis Authorizing Privateers April 17
April 19, 1861 - President Lincoln issues
a Proclamation of Blockade against Southern ports. For the duration of the war
the blockade limits the ability of the rural South to stay well supplied in its
war against the industrialized North.
April 20, 1861 - Robert E. Lee resigns
his commission in the United States Army. "I cannot raise my hand
against my birthplace, my home, my children." Lee then goes to Richmond,
Virginia, is offered command of the military and naval forces of Virginia, and
accepts.
1861
- Message to Congress of the Confederate States, April 29 (Ratification of the
Constitution)
Words
to the The Battle Hymn of the Republic
Text
of Dixie Land [The most popular Southern marching song]
And
Music
The
Constitution of the Confederate States of America (1861)
July 4, 1861 - Lincoln, in a speech to
Congress, states the war is..."a People's contest...a struggle for
maintaining in the world, that form, and substance of government, whose leading
object is, to elevate the condition of men..." The Congress authorizes a
call for 500,000 men.
July 21, 1861 - The Union Army under Gen. Irvin
McDowell suffers a defeat at Bull
Run 25 miles southwest of Washington. Confederate Gen. Thomas
J. Jackson earns the nickname "Stonewall," as his brigade
resists Union attacks. Union troops fall back to Washington. President Lincoln
realizes the war will be long. "It's damned bad," he comments.
July 27, 1861 - President Lincoln appoints
George B. McClellan as Commander of the Department of the Potomac, replacing
McDowell. McClellan tells his wife ,
"I find myself in a new and strange position here: President, cabinet, Gen.
Scott, and all deferring to me. By some strange operation of magic I seem to
have become the power of the land."
Sept 11, 1861 - President Lincoln revokes Gen. John C. Frémont's unauthorized military
proclamation of emancipation in Missouri. Later, the president relieves Gen. Frémont
of his command and replaces him with Gen. David Hunter.
Nov 1, 1861 - President Lincoln appoints McClellan as general-in-chief of all Union forces
after the resignation of the aged Winfield
Scott . Lincoln tells McClellan, "...the supreme command of the Army
will entail a vast labor upon you." McClellan responds, "I can do it
all."
Nov 8, 1861 - The beginning of an international diplomatic crisis for President Lincoln as
two Confederate officials sailing toward England are seized by the U.S. Navy.
England, the leading world power, demands their release, threatening war.
Lincoln eventually gives in and orders their release in December. "One war
at a time," Lincoln remarks.
Jan 31, 1862 - President Lincoln issues
General War Order No. 1 calling for all United States naval and land forces to
begin a general advance by Feb 22, George Washington's birthday.
Feb 6, 1862 - Victory for Gen.
Ulysses S. Grant in Tennessee, capturing Fort Henry, and ten days later Fort
Donelson. Grant earns the nickname "Unconditional Surrender" Grant.
Feb 20, 1862 - President Lincoln is struck with grief as his beloved eleven year old son,
Willie, dies from fever, probably caused by polluted drinking water in the White
House.
March 8/9, 1862 - The Confederate Ironclad 'Merrimac' sinks two wooden Union ships then battles
the Union Ironclad 'Monitor' to a draw. Naval warfare is thus changed forever,
making wooden ships obsolete. Engraving
of the Battle
1862: Battle of the Ironclads For the
first time, two armored ships battle each other at sea. The Union Monitor,
designed from scratch by John Ericsson, features a two-cannon revolving turret
and eight-inch plate armor. The Confederate Merrimac, a wooden hulled ship
hastily outfitted with iron plates, holds it own against the Monitor. The two
battle to a draw.
In March - The Peninsular Campaign begins
as McClellan's Army of the Potomac advances from Washington down the Potomac
River and the Chesapeake Bay to the peninsular south of the Confederate Capital
of Richmond, Virginia then begins an advance toward Richmond. President Lincoln
temporarily relieves McClellan as general-in-chief and takes direct command of
the Union Armies.
McClellan
Letter to Lincoln on His Evacuation from the Penninsula Campaign, 1862
April 6/7, 1862 - Confederate surprise attack on Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's unprepared troops at
Shiloh on the Tennessee River results in a bitter struggle with 13,000 Union
killed and wounded and 10,000 Confederates, more men than in all previous
American wars combined. The president is then pressured to relieve Grant but
resists. "I can't spare this man; he fights," Lincoln says.
Treaty
Between United States and Great Britain for the Suppression of the Slave Trade
April 7,1862
April 24, 1862 - 17 Union ships under the
command of Flag Officer David
Farragut move up the Mississippi River then take New Orleans, the
South's greatest seaport. Later in the war, sailing through a Rebel mine field
Farragut utters the famous phrase "Damn the torpedoes, full speed
ahead!"
1862
- The Homestead Act, May 20 see also: The
Homestead Act of 1862 (May) An explanation of the
importance of the famous land act. Includes text of the act.
May 31, 1862 - The Battle of Seven Pines as Gen. Joseph
E. Johnston 's Army attacks McClellan's troops in front of Richmond and
nearly defeats them. But Johnston is badly wounded.
June 1, 1862 - Gen. Robert E. Lee assumes command, replacing the wounded Johnston. Lee then
renames his force the Army of Northern Virginia. McClellan is not impressed,
saying Lee is "likely to be timid and irresolute in action."
June 25-July 1 - The Seven Days Battles as Lee attacks McClellan near Richmond,
resulting in very heavy losses for both armies. McClellan then begins a
withdrawal back toward Washington.
1862
- The Pacific Railway Act, July 1
1862
- George B. McClellan to Abraham Lincoln, July 7 [on the Union defeat during the
Peninsular Campaign]
July 11, 1862 - After four months as his own general-in-chief, President Lincoln hands over
the task to Gen. Henry
W. (Old Brains) Halleck .
Aug 29/30, 1862 - 75,000 Federals under Gen. John
Pope are defeated by 55,000 Confederates under Gen. Stonewall Jackson
and Gen. James
Longstreet at the second battle of Bull
Run in northern Virginia. Once again the Union Army retreats to
Washington. The president then relieves Pope.
Sept 4-9, 1862 - Lee invades the North with 50,000 Confederates and heads for Harpers
Ferry , located 50 miles northwest of Washington. The Union Army, 90,000
strong, under the command of McClellan, pursues Lee.
Sept 17, 1862 - The bloodiest day in U.S. military history as Gen. Robert E. Lee and the
Confederate Armies are stopped at Antietam in Maryland by McClellan and numerically superior Union forces. By nightfall
26,000 men are dead, wounded, or missing. Lee then withdraws to Virginia.
Emancipation
Proclamation; September 22, 1862
1862,
Lorena [a popular ballad of the times]
Nov 7, 1862 - The president replaces
McClellan with Gen. Ambrose
E. Burnside as the new Commander of the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln had
grown impatient with McClellan's slowness to follow up on the success at
Antietam, even telling him, "If you don't want to use the army, I should
like to borrow it for a while."
Dec 13, 1862 - Army of the Potomac under
Gen. Burnside suffers a costly defeat at Fredericksburg in Virginia with a loss of 12,653 men after 14 frontal assaults on well
entrenched Rebels on Marye's Heights. "We might as well have tried to take
hell," a Union soldier remarks. Confederate losses are 5,309. "It is
well that war is so terrible - we should grow too fond of it," states Lee
during the fighting.
1863: Roller Skates
James
Plimpton of Medford, Massachusetts, gives the world the first practical
four-wheeled roller skate. This sets off a roller craze that quickly spreads
across the U.S. and Europe.
Jan 1, 1863 - President Lincoln issues the
final Emancipation Proclamation freeing all slaves in territories held by
Confederates and emphasizes the enlisting of black soldiers in the Union Army.
The war to preserve the Union now becomes a revolutionary struggle
for the abolition of slavery.
Jan 25, 1863 - The president appoints Gen. Joseph
(Fighting Joe) Hooker as Commander of the Army of the Potomac, replacing
Burnside.
Jan 29, 1863 - Gen. Grant is placed in command of the Army of the West, with orders to
capture Vicksburg.
Additional
Article to the Treaty for the Suppression of the African Slave Trade
February 17, 1863
March 3, 1863 - The U.S. Congress enacts a draft, affecting male citizens aged 20 to 45, but
also exempts those who pay $300 or provide a substitute. "The blood of a
poor man is as precious as that of the wealthy," poor Northerners complain.
Marching
Song of the First Arkansas
The
Battle Hymn of the Republic and music
Albert
Underwood's Civil War Diary
May 1-4, 1863 - The Union Army under Gen.
Hooker is decisively defeated by Lee's much smaller forces at the Battle of
Chancellorsville in Virginia as a result of Lee's brilliant and daring
tactics. Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson is mortally wounded by his own
soldiers. Hooker retreats. Union losses are 17,000 killed, wounded and missing
out of 130,000. The Confederates, 13, 000 out of 60,000. "I just lost
confidence in Joe Hooker," said Hooker later about his own lack of nerve
during the battle.
May 10, 1863 - The South suffers a huge
blow as Stonewall Jackson dies from his wounds, his last words, "Let
us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees." "I
have lost my right arm," Lee laments.
June 3, 1863 - Gen. Lee with 75,000 Confederates launches his second invasion of the North,
heading into Pennsylvania in a campaign that will soon lead to Gettysburg.
June 28, 1863 - President Lincoln appoints Gen. George
G. Meade as commander of the Army of the Potomac, replacing Hooker. Meade is the 5th man to command the Army in less than a year.
July 1-3, 1863 - The tide of war turns
against the South as the Confederates are defeated at the Battle of
Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. Read
about the Battle of Gettysburg - Battlefield
Photos
July 4, 1863 - Vicksburg ,
the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River, surrenders to Gen.
Grant and the Army of the West after a six week siege. With the Union now in
control of the Mississippi, the Confederacy is effectively split in two, cut off
from its western allies.
July 13-16, 1863 - Antidraft riots in New York City include arson and the murder of
blacks by poor immigrant whites. At least 120 persons, including children, are
killed and $2 million in damage caused, until Union soldiers returning from
Gettysburg restore order.
July 18, 1863 - 'Negro troops' of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment under Col. Robert
G. Shaw assault fortified Rebels at Fort Wagner, South Carolina. Col. Shaw and
half of the 600 men in the regiment are killed.
Aug 10, 1863 - The president meets with abolitionist Frederick
Douglass who pushes for full equality for Union 'Negro troops.'
Aug 21, 1863 - At Lawrence, Kansas, pro-Confederate William C. Quantrill and 450 proslavery
followers raid the town and butcher 182 boys and men.
1863
- Cordley, Richard: The Lawrence Massacre
Sept 19/20, 1863 - A decisive Confederate
victory by Gen. Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee at Chickamauga leaves Gen. William
S. Rosecrans ' Union Army of the Cumberland trapped in Chattanooga,
Tennessee under Confederate siege.
Oct 16, 1863 - The president appoints Gen. Grant to command all operations in the western
theater.
Nov 19, 1863 - President Lincoln delivers
a two minute Gettysburg Address at a ceremony dedicating the Battlefield as a
National Cemetery.
Page one of Gettysburg Address in Lincoln's handwriting
Page
two of Gettysburg Address in Lincoln's handwriting
1863
- Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19
All
Quiet Along the Potomac, Words and
Music
Nov 23-25, 1863 - The Rebel siege of
Chattanooga ends as Union forces under Grant defeat the siege army of Gen.
Braxton Bragg. During the battle, one of the most dramatic moments of the war
occurs. Yelling "Chickamauga! Chickamauga!" Union troops avenge their
previous defeat at Chickamauga by storming up the face of Missionary Ridge without orders and sweep the Rebels from what had been though to be an
impregnable position. "My God, come and see 'em run!" a Union soldier
cries.
Proclamation
Of Amnesty, December 8
1864: Oil Pipeline
Built
in the oil fields at Pithole, Pennsylvania, Samuel van Syckel's five-mile,
pump-operated pipeline made oil transport infinitely easier. No one appreciated
this less than the Teamsters, who saw the pipeline as a threat to their business
and destroyed it. The determined van Syckel hired a crew of "pipeline
protectors" and rebuilt the pipeline.
March 9, 1864 - President Lincoln appoints
Gen. Grant to command all of the armies of the United States. Gen. William
T. Sherman succeeds Grant as commander in the west.
May 4, 1864 - The beginning of a massive, coordinated campaign involving all the Union
Armies. In Virginia, Grant with an Army of 120,000 begins advancing toward
Richmond to engage Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, now numbering 64,000,
beginning a war of attrition that will include major battles at the Wilderness
(May 5-6), Spotsylvania (May 8-12), and Cold Harbor (June 1-3). In the west,
Sherman, with 100,000 men begins an advance toward Atlanta to engage Joseph E.
Johnston's 60,000 strong Army of Tennessee.
June 3, 1864 - A costly mistake by Grant results in 7,000 Union casualties in twenty minutes during an offensive against
fortified Rebels at Cold
Harbor in Virginia. Many of the Union soldiers in the failed assault had
predicted the outcome, including a dead soldier from Massachusetts whose last
entry in his diary was, "June 3, 1864, Cold Harbor, Virginia. I was
killed."
June 15, 1864 - Union forces miss an opportunity to capture Petersburg and cut off the
Confederate rail lines. As a result, a nine month siege of Petersburg begins
with Grant's forces surrounding Lee.
1864
- Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation on the Wade-Davis Bill, July 8, 1864
July 20, 1864 - At Atlanta, Sherman's
forces battle the Rebels now under the command of Gen. John
B. Hood , who replaced Johnston.
The
Wade-Davis Manifesto, August 5, 1864
1864
- The Wade-Davis Manifesto, August 5, 1864
Aug 29, 1864 - Democrats nominate George
B. McClellan for president to run against Republican incumbent Abraham Lincoln.
Sept 2, 1864 - Atlanta is captured by Sherman 's
Army. "Atlanta is ours, and fairly won," Sherman telegraphs Lincoln.
The victory greatly helps President Lincoln's bid for re-election.
1864
- Abraham Lincoln - The Emacipation Proclamation, September 22
Oct 19, 1864 - A decisive Union victory by
Cavalry Gen. Philip
H. Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley over Jubal Early's troops.
1864 - Simonoseki Indemnities : October 22
[regarding a rebellious local lord in Japan]
Nov 8, 1864 - Abraham Lincoln is
re-elected president, defeating Democrat George B. McClellan. Lincoln carries
all but three states with 55 percent of the popular vote and 212 of 233
electoral votes. "I earnestly believe that the consequences of this day's
work will be to the lasting advantage, if not the very salvation, of the
country," Lincoln tells supporters.
Nov 15, 1864 - After destroying Atlanta's
warehouses and railroad facilities, Sherman, with 62,000 men begins a March to the Sea. President
Lincoln on advice from Grant approved the idea. "I can make Georgia
howl!" Sherman boasts.
Dec 15/16, 1864 - Hood's Rebel Army of 23,000 is crushed at Nashville by 55,000 Federals including Negro troops under Gen. George
H. Thomas . The Confederate Army of Tennessee ceases as an effective
fighting force.
Dec 21, 1864 - Sherman reaches Savannah in Georgia leaving behind a 300 mile long path of
destruction 60 miles wide all the way from Atlanta. Sherman then telegraphs
Lincoln, offering him Savannah as a Christmas present.
1864-1865
- Documents on the Sand Creek Massacre
1865: Web Offset Printing William
Bullock introduced a printing press that could feed paper on a continuous roll
and print both sides of the paper at once. Used first by the Philadelphia
Ledger, the machine would become an American standard. It would also kill its
maker, who died when he accidentally fell into one of his presses.
Jan 31, 1865 - The U.S. Congress approves
the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, to abolish slavery.
The amendment is then submitted to the states for ratification.
United
States Constitution - Thirteenth Amendment January
31, 1865
Feb 3, 1865 - A peace conference occurs as President Lincoln meets with Confederate
Vice President Alexander
Stephens at Hampton Roads in Virginia, but the meeting ends in failure -
the war will continue. Only Lee's Army at Petersburg and Johnston's forces in
North Carolina remain to fight for the South against Northern forces now
numbering 280,000 men.
March 4, 1865 - Inauguration ceremonies for President Lincoln in Washington. "With malice
toward none; with charity for all...let us strive on to finish the work we are
in...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among
ourselves, and with all nations," Lincoln says.
March 25, 1865 - The last offensive for Lee's Army of Northern Virginia begins with an attack
on the center of Grant's forces at Petersburg. Four hours later the attack is
broken.
April 2, 1865 - Grant's forces begin a
general advance and break through Lee's lines at Petersburg. Confederate Gen. Ambrose
P. Hill is killed. Lee evacuates Petersburg. The Confederate Capital, Richmond ,
is evacuated. Fires and looting break out. The next day, Union troops enter and
raise the Stars and Stripes.
April 4, 1865 - President Lincoln tours Richmond where he enters the Confederate
White House . With "a serious, dreamy expression," he sits at
the desk of Jefferson Davis for a few moments.
1865
- The Civil Rights Act- April 9
April 9, 1865 - Gen. Robert E. Lee
surrenders his Confederate Army to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at the village of Appomattox Court House in Virginia. Grant allows Rebel
officers to keep their sidearms and permits soldiers to keep horses and mules.
"After four years of arduous service marked by unsurpassed courage and
fortitude the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to
overwhelming numbers and resources," Lee tells his troops.
April 10, 1865 - Celebrations break out in
Washington.
April 14, 1865 - The Stars and Stripes is
ceremoniously raised over Fort Sumter. That night, Lincoln and his wife Mary see
the play "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater. At 10:13 p.m.,
during the third act of the play, John Wilkes Booth shoots the president in the
head. Doctors attend to the president in the theater then move him to a house
across the street. He never regains consciousness.
April 15, 1865 - President Abraham Lincoln dies at 7:22 in the morning. Vice President Andrew
Johnson assumes the presidency.
April 18, 1865 - Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrenders to Sherman near Durham in North
Carolina.
April 26, 1865 - John Wilkes Booth is shot
and killed in a tobacco barn in Virginia.
May 4, 1865 - Abraham Lincoln is laid to rest in Oak Ridge Cemetery, outside Springfield,
Illinois.
In May -
Remaining Confederate forces surrender. The Nation is reunited as the Civil War
ends. Over 620,000 Americans died in the war, with disease killing twice as many
as those lost in battle. 50,000 survivors return home as amputees.
Address
of a convention of Negroes held in Alexandria, Virginia, August 1865
Dec 6, 1865 - The Thirteenth Amendment to
the United States Constitution, passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, is
finally ratified. Slavery is abolished.
Thaddeus
Stevens speech of December 18, 1865
1865 -
Paul
Jennings' Reminiscences of James Madison
1865
- An Act To establish A Bureau For The Relief Of Freedmen And Refugees
1866
Civil Rights Act The Civil Rights Act (1866) was passed by Congress on 9th April 1866 over the veto of President Andrew Johnson. The act declared that all persons born in the United States were now citizens, without regard to race, color, or previous condition. As citizens they could make and enforce contracts, sue and be sued, give evidence in court, and inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property. Persons who denied these rights to former slaves were guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction faced a fine not exceeding $1,000, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both. The activities of organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan undermined the workings of this act and it failed to guarantee the civil rights of African Americans.
1866
Immigration Act In an attempt to encourage immigrants to migrate from the eastern seaboard to western areas of the United States members of Congress passed the Homestead Act. The legislation stated that the head of a family could acquire a section of land consisting of 160 acres, settle it, and cultivate it for five years. At the end of the five year period, if the head of the family had become a citizen or declared his intention to become a citizen, he would gain ownership of the land. At the first session of the 37th Congress on 8th December, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln strongly recommended national legislation to encourage immigration to the United States. A committee was established to look into this proposal and in July, 1864 a bill was passed by Congress that provided for the appointment of a Commissioner of Immigration. This bill wasamended in 1866 to increase the number of commissioners and to set up immigration agencies in Britain, Germany, Sweden and Norway.
1866-1868 When the US government tried to
force the Sioux back to Fort Laramie, the Indians responded with attacks that
culminated in Red Cloud’s War of this period. Red Cloud’s War of 1866-‘68
was waged in opposition to the development by the U.S. government of a trail
through Wyoming and Montana to the Montana gold camps. The two-year war was
waged between the Lakota Sioux, led by Ogallala chief Red Cloud, and the U.S.
Army. On December 21, 1866, the Sioux won a major victory, wiping out the entire
command of 80 men under Capt. William J. Fetterman. The war ended with the
signing of the Laramie Treaty, which included the closure of the Bozeman Trail
and U.S. abandonment of three forts.
1866
In Sweden Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, a safe and manageable form of
nitroglycerin. A pacifist by nature, Nobel hoped that the destructive power of
his invention would bring an end to wars. It didn't work.
The
Little Sod Shanty On My Claim [Song about homesteading on the
plains]
1866 Colonel John O'Neill of the
Fenian Brotherhood--formerly of the U.S. cavalry--led a force of Irish-Americans
against this British-ruled Canada. A year after America's Civil War ended,
scores of Irish Americans who had once fought for the Union or the Confederacy
joined forces against a new enemy.
1866 The Calaveras skull, from a mining
shaft in Altaville near Angels Camp in Calaveras County, Ca., was one of the
most notorious archaeological hoaxes perpetrated in the nineteenth century.
1866 James Vernor, a Detroit pharmacist,
began marketing a new soft drink.
1866 Jasper Daniel (Jack Daniel) started
distilling whiskey in Lynchburg, Tenn.
1866 When the transcontinental railroad
reached Abilene, Kansas, Chicago livestock buyer J.G. McCoy saw the
possibilities of linking the unwanted herds of Texas longhorns with the
meat-packing centers of Chicago. McCoy built a series of holding pens in Abilene
and convinced south Texas ranchers to drive the cattle north along the Chisholm
Trail to the railhead.
1866 The railroad land grant corporations
in Montana, led by J.P. Morgan and James Hill, grabbed off 40 million acres.
1866 Feb 13 , Jesse James took part in his
1st bank holdup. At least a dozen former Southern guerrilla soldiers, including
Frank James and Cole Younger, held up the Clay County Savings Association in
Liberty, Missouri, of $15,000. Jesse James was recovering from wounds suffered
as a Confederate guerrilla and probably wasn’t able to help brother Frank and
Cole, but the Liberty bank job is considered the James-Younger Gang’s first
robbery. Another outlaw legend, Charles "Black Bart" Boles baffled
Wells Fargo detectives during an eight year stint of 27 stagecoach robberies.
1866 Feb 21 , Lucy B. Hobbs became the first woman to graduate from a
dental school, the Ohio College of Dental Surgery in Cincinnati.
1866 Mar 2 , Excelsior Needle Company of Wolcottville, Connecticut, began
making sewing machine needles, the 1st US company to make sewing needles.
1866 Mar 21 , The US Congress authorized national soldiers' homes.
1866 Mar 27 , President Andrew Johnson vetoed the civil rights bill,
which later became the 14th amendment.
1866 Mar 27 , Andrew Rankin patented the
urinal.
1866 Mar 31 , Fred. Law Olmsted, New York City landscape architect, wrote
a long piece on city planning for parks with special reference to San Francisco.
1866 Apr 1 , US Congress rejected presidential veto and gave all equal
rights.
1866 Apr 2 , Pres. Johnson ended war in Ala, Ark, Fla, Ga, Miss, La, NC,
SC, Ten and Va.
1866 Apr 6 , G.A.R. was formed (Grand Army of the Republic). It was
composed of men who served in the US Army and Navy during the Civil War. The
last member died in 1956.
1866 Apr 9 , A Civil Rights Bill passed over Pres Andrew Johnson's veto to
secure for former slaves all the rights of citizenship intended by the 13th
Amendment. The president was empowered to use the Army to enforce the law. This
formed the basis for the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
1866 Apr 10 , The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals was incorporated.
Alexander
Stephens on Reconstruction, April 11, 1866
1866 May 5 , Villagers in Waterloo, NY,
held their 1st Memorial Day service. In 1966 Pres. Johnson gave Waterloo, NY,
the distinction of holding the 1st Memorial Day. On Apr 13, 1862, volunteers led
by Sarah J. Evans had paid homage to the graves of Civil War soldiers in the
Washington area.
1866 May 11 , Confederate President Jefferson Davis became a free man
after spending two years in prison for his role in the American Civil War.
1866 May 16 , US Congress authorized minting of the nickel.
1866 May 16 , Charles Elmer Hires invented
root beer.
1866 May 24 , Founders of UC Berkeley named their town after Bishop George
Berkeley due to a line Berkeley’s poem: On the Prospect of Planting Arts and
Learning in America: "Westward the course of empire takes its way."
1866 May 29 , US Gen'l. Winfield Scott (79) died at West Point, New York.
Union General Winfield Scott was the originator of the military strategy known
as the "Anaconda Plan." Scott's plan for defeating the Confederacy
featured a naval blockade of the South designed to slowly "strangle"
the fledgling country. The Union did impose such a blockade, but by 1861 Scott
was considered too old to lead the federal armies and he retired that November.
Although a Virginian born on June 13, 1786, Scott-popularly called "Old
Fuss and Feathers"-remained loyal to the Union and its army he commanded
when war broke out.
June 14, 1866 . | 14 Stats., 785.
| Ratified July 19, 1866. | Proclaimed Aug. 11, 1866.:
TREATY
WITH THE CREEKS
June 28, 1866 , (ratified) and
proclaimed July 10, 1866.
Treaty of 1866 - Choctaw & Chickasaw Nation
Report
of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, June 20, 1866 see also: 1866
- Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, June 20
1866 Jul 4 , Firecracker thrown in wood
started a fire that destroyed Portland, Me.
1866 Jul 10 , The Indelible pencil was patented by Edson P. Clark of
Northampton, Mass.
1866 Jul 13 , Great Eastern began a two week voyage to complete a 12-year
effort to lay telegraph cable across the Atlantic between Britain and the United
States. Massachusetts merchant and financier Cyrus West Field first proposed
laying a 2,000-mile copper cable along the ocean bottom from Newfoundland to
Ireland in 1854, but the first three attempts ended in broken cables and
failure. Field’s persistence finally paid off in July 1866, when Great
Eastern, the largest ship then afloat, successfully laid the cable along the
level, sandy bottom of the North Atlantic. As messages traveled between Europe
and America in hours rather than weeks, Cyrus Field was showered with honors.
Among the honors was this commemorative print referring to the cable as the
Eighth Wonder of the World.
July 19, 1866. Ratified July 27, 1866.
Proclaimed Aug. 11, 1866
Treaty
with Cherokee Nation
July 23 Cincinnati Baseball club (Red Stockings) forms
1866 Jul 24 , Tennessee became the first state to be readmitted to the
Union after the Civil War.
1866 Jul 25 , Ulysses S. Grant was named General of the Army, the first
officer to hold the rank.
July 25 25th Postmaster General: Alexander W Randall of Wis takes office
July 25 David Faragut appointed as 1st Admiral of U.S. Navy
1866 Jul 28 , Metric system became a legal measurement system in US. It
defined the meter as exactly 39.37 inches and was later superceded.
July 30 Race riot in New Orleans
1866 Jul , The Sioux war on the Powder river commenced. When it commenced
General St. George Cook, in command at Omaha, forbade within the limits of his
command the sale of arms and ammunition to Indians.
1866 Aug 11 , The world's 1st roller rink opened at Newport, RI.
1866 Aug 20 , President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War
over, even though the fighting had stopped months earlier. After the Civil War
Congress voted to give freed slaves 40 acres and a mule but Pres. Johnson killed
the plan with a veto.
1866 Sep 1 , Manuelito, the last Navaho chief, turned himself in at Fort
Wingate, New Mexico.
Andrew
Johnson, Cleveland speech, September 3, 1866
1866 Sep 6 , Frederick Douglass became the
1st US black delegate to a national convention.
1866 Sep 12, The first burlesque show opened in New York City (NYC). The
show was a four act performance called "The Black Crow", running for
475 performances and made a reported $1.3 million for its producers.
1866 Sep 25 , (Leonard W) Jerome Park opened in Bronx for horse racing.
1866 Oct 2 , U.S. inventor J. Osterhoudt develops a metal can that can be
opened with a key that rolls up the top of the container (familiar to many as a
method commonly used for canning various fish products).
1866 Oct 6 , The Reno brothers—Frank, John, Simeon and
William—committed the country’s first train robbery near Seymore, In.,
netting $10,000.
1866 Oct 30 , Jesse James gang robbed a bank in Lexington, Missouri, of
$2000.
1866 Nov 1 , Belle Starr [née Myra Maybelle Shirley], “Bandit Queen”
and wild woman of the west, married James C. Reed (d.1874) in Collins County,
Texas.
1866 Nov 1, 1st Civil Rights Bill passed.
1866 Nov 30 , Work in Chicago began on 1st US underwater highway
tunnel.
1866 Dec 6 , Chicago water supply tunnel into Lake Michigan was completed.
In the late 1800s the city reversed the water flow of the Chicago River so that
it flow in from Lake Michigan and carry pollution out to drain into the
Mississippi.
1866 Dec 20-21 , The Lakota Sioux Indians called this night "The moon
when the Deer shed their horns." A bright full moon occurred due to a
confluence of 3 celestial events. The moon reached perigee with Earth on the
solstice with the sun at its closest point. The event occurred again on Dec 22,
1999.
1866 Dec 21 , Indians led by Red Cloud and Crazy Horse killed Captain
William J. Fetterman and 79 other men who had ventured out from Fort Phil Kearny
to cut wood. U.S. Army Captain William J. Fetterman once boasted, "Give me
80 men and I'll march through the whole Sioux nation!" When Lakota warriors
under the overall leadership of Chief Red Cloud gathered around Fort Phil Kearny
(in what is now Wyoming), Fetterman got command of his 80 men. Disobeying the
orders of his commander, Colonel Henry B Carrington, not to proceed beyond the
Lodge Trail Ridge, Fetterman pursued a band of retreating Indians--and rode
right into a waiting trap, allegedly laid by the Ogallala warrior Crazy Horse.
Fetterman, his executive officer and 78 troopers were wiped out.
1866 The Boston Yacht Club was founded.
1866 The New York Yacht Club hosted the 1st-ever transatlantic race.
1866 The veteran organization Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was formed
in Springfield, Illinois, in 1866. The patriotic organization of U.S. Civil War
veterans who served in Federal forces was formed to protect the interests of the
veterans. The GAR had a peak membership of more than 400,000 in 1890 and was a
powerful political influence. The organization was dissolved in 1956.
1866 The Ku Klux Klan is generally acknowledged to have started in
Pulaski, Tenn., in this year. [see Dec 24, 1865]
1866 Pres. Andrew Johnson signed an executive order that removed the
Shoalwater Bay Indians in Washington state from their villages and onto a 1-sq.
mile reservation. By 2000 erosion took away over half the tribal land and
miscarriages stood at 4 times the expected rate.
1866 The US coined some silver dollars without the inscription "In
God We Trust." Only 2 coins were known to exist in 2004. In Oct 1867, one
was stolen along with some 7,000 other rare coins from the Florida collection of
Willis H. du Pont. It turned up in 2004.
1866 In Mississippi a fifth of the state’s revenues were spent on
artificial arms and legs for Confederate veterans.
1866 Western Union introduced the ticker system to supply New York Stock
Exchange prices to brokers around the country.
1866 The Hopland, Ca., hops industry began. The damp soils of the Russian
River floodplains were suitable for the cultivation of hops, whose flowers
determine the bitterness and aromatic properties of beer.
1866 American dentist and pioneer in
radiotelegraphy Mahlon Loomis [b. Oppenheim, New York, July 21, 1826, d. Terra
Alta, West Virginia, October 13, 1886] sends telegraph messages over radio waves
between two mountains in West Virginia, using aerials held in the air by kites.
Because this experiment is conducted before radio waves are recognized, Loomis's
method of communication is ignored by science.
1867: Barbed Wire Lucien B. Smith of Kent,
Ohio, invents the product that will close down the open cattle ranges by closing
in cattle onto individual plots of privately owned land. I.L. Ellwood and
Company's Glidden Steel Barb Wire will dominate the market; by 1890 the open
range will be only a memory.
Andrew
Johnson, Veto of the first Reconstruction Act, March 2, 1867
1867
- Frederick Douglass, Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage, January
1867
- Russian Treaty; March 30 ["Seward's Folly" - the purchase of
Alaska]
1867 Jan 8, Legislation gave suffrage to DC blacks, despite Pres. Johnson's veto.
1867 Mar 1, Most of Nebraska became the 37th state. It was expanded later.
1867 Mar 1, Howard University, Washington DC, was chartered.
1867 Mar 2, The first Reconstruction Act was passed by Congress.
1867 Mar 2, Congress abolished peonage in New Mexico.
1867 Mar 2, US Congress created the Department of Education.
1867 Mar 2, Jesse James-gang robbed a bank in Savannah MO, 1 dead.
1867 Mar 23, Congress passed a 2nd Reconstruction Act over President Johnson's veto.
1867 Mar 29, The United States purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million dollars. [see Mar 30]
1867 Mar 29, Congress approved the Lincoln Memorial.
1867 Mar 30, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward reached agreement with Russia’s Baron Stoeckl to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2 million, two cents an acre, a deal roundly ridiculed as "Seward's Folly," "Seward's icebox," and President Andrew Johnson's "polar bear garden." The treaty was signed the next day.
1867 Apr 1, Blacks voted in the municipal election in Tuscumbia, Alabama.
1867 Apr 9, The treaty authorizing the purchase was ratified. Alaska became a state in 1959. The per-acre purchase price for Alaska paid by the U.S. to Russia in 1867 was two cents. Through the negotiations of Secretary of State William H. Seward the purchase of the 591,000 square miles (more than 375 million acres) of Russian America territory cost $7.2 million.
1867 Apr 24, Black demonstrators staged ride-ins on Richmond, Va., streetcars.
1867 Apr, George N. Jaquith was killed during an expedition against the Bannock Indians in the Steen Mountains of Oregon.
1867 May 1, Reconstruction in the South began with black voter registration.
1867 May 23, Jesse James gang robbed a bank in Richmond, Missouri, with 2 killed and $4,000 taken.
1867 Jun 19, The first running of the Belmont Stakes horserace in the US. It later became part of the Triple Crown. Oldest of the three U.S. horse races that constitute the Triple Crown. The Belmont is named after August Belmont. The stakes is held in early June at Belmont Park, near Garden City, Long Island; the course is 1.5 mi (2,400 m).
1867 Jun 20, Pres. Andrew Johnson announced the purchase of Alaska.
1867 Jun 25, The 1st barbed wire was patented by Lucien B. Smith of Ohio. [see Illinois, Oct 27, 1873]
1867 Jun 27, The Bank of California opened its doors.
1867 Jun, 2,000 Chinese workers on the western railroad struck because they had not been paid in weeks. They also demanded that whippings stop and that hours spent in hot tunnels be limited to 8 hours per day. Central Pacific Railroad co-founder, Charles Crocker, who was in charge of construction, cut off the striker’s food supply and threatened to fire the workers. The strike collapsed after a week.
1867 Jul 2, The 1st US elevated railroad began service in NYC.
1867 Jul 16, D.R. Averill patented a ready-mixed paint and Joseph Monier patented reinforced concrete.
1867 Jul 19, The US enacted reconstruction.
1867 Jul 25, President Andrew Johnson signed an act creating the territory of Wyoming. [see Jul 25, 1868]
1867 Aug 12, President Andrew Johnson sparked a move to impeach him as he defied Congress by suspending Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.
1867 Aug 28, The US occupied the Midway Islands in Pacific.
1867 Sep 5, The first shipment of cattle left Abilene, Kansas, on a Union Pacific train headed to Chicago.
1867 Sep 7, President Andrew Johnson extended amnesty to all but a few of the leaders of the Confederacy.
1867 Sep 13, Gen. E.R.S. Canby ordered South Carolina courts to impanel blacks as jurors.
1867 Sep 25, Congress created the 1st all black university, Howard Univ. in Wash DC.
1867 Oct 9, The Russians formally transferred Alaska to the US. The U.S. had bought Alaska for $7.2 million in gold.
1867 Oct 18, The rules for American football were formulated at meeting in New York among delegates from Columbia, Rutgers, Princeton and Yale universities.
1867 Oct 18, The United States took formal possession of Alaska from Russia.
1867 Oct 21, Many leaders of the Kiowa, Comanche and Kiowa-Apache signed a peace treaty at Medicine Lodge, Kan. Comanche Chief Quanah Parker refused to accept the treaty terms.
1867 Nov 12, Mount Vesuvius erupted.
1867 Nov 25, US Congress commission looked into impeachment of President Andrew Johnson.
1867 Nov 26, A refrigerated railroad car was patented by JB Sutherland of Detroit. [see Jan 16, 1868]
1867 Dec 4, The Order of Patrons of Husbandry, more commonly known as the National Grange, was founded by Oliver Kelley, a traveling clerk with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The original purpose of the Grange was to provide enrichment opportunities for isolated farm families, but its purpose quickly became economic and political. Farmers, particularly in the Midwest and South, were frequently victimized by railroad monopolies that charged exorbitant rates and storage fees. By 1872, 14 states had Grange chapters and membership had risen to about 800,000. Grangers took the lead in organizing farmers' cooperatives to successfully distribute their own produce and in just a few years, Grangers had won enough political support to influence national legislation regulating railroads. The Grange was succeeded by the Farmers' Alliances and in 1891, farmers and labor organizers formed the influential People's Party, or the Populist Party.
1867 Dec 9, The capital of Colorado Territory was moved from Golden to Denver.
1867 The household guidebook "Six Hundred Dollars a Year" was published. It allotted $10 for a white granite dinner set and $5 for a French China tea set.
1867 The Tabernacle, home of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, was completed in Salt Lake City, Utah.
1867 The Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, established by settlers in New York, became the Reformed Church of America.
c1867 In NYC restaurateur and entrepreneur Charles Feltman, who owned a pie wagon at Coney, was looking for something simple he could prepare and serve in a confined space. He hit on the idea of putting a hot sausage in a hard roll. Another version puts Feltman in his German restaurant, Feldman's Ocean Pavilion, when at some point a sausage ended up between two slices of bread. Feltman called it a frankfurter, and cartoonists labeled it a "hot dog."
1867 William Arthur Cummings (Candy Cummings) was credited to be the first baseball pitcher to throw a curve ball.
1867 US Secret Service responsibilities were broadened to include "detecting persons perpetrating frauds against the government." This appropriation resulted in investigations into the Ku Klux Klan, non-conforming distillers, smugglers, mail robbers, land frauds, and a number of other infractions against the federal laws.
1867 Anton Burlingame resigned his diplomatic post as US ambassador to China and was named High Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary from the Court of Peking.
1867 There was anti-Chinese violence in SF and Chinese laborers were driven from work and their homes were destroyed by whites angry over the economic conditions.
1867 The Cigar Makers Int'l. became the first union in the US to admit women.
1867 Trans-Pacific trade was pioneered when the Pacific Mail Steamship Co. dispatched the 300-foot steamship Colorado from SF to Yokohama and Hong Kong.
1867 The US Playing Card Co. began business. In 2003 its brands included Bee, Hoyle, Aviator and Bicycle (b.1885).
1867 The ticker tape was introduced for stock transactions.
1867 Adelia Waldron patented the washing machine.
1867 J.G. McCoy shipped 35,000 cattle to Chicago to end up on American dinner tables.
1867 Christopher Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soule invented the typewriter in the 1860s. Charles E. Weller coined the phrase "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party" to check out the first typewriter built in Milwaukee.
1867 There was a yellow-fever epidemic in the US.
1867 Dr. Joseph Lister (Listerine) published the results of his antiseptic system in the Lancet medical journal.
1867 There were 10,000 recorded divorces in the US.
1867 The sailing ship Hellespont, a Welsh coal ship with passengers, wrecked near Pescadero, Ca.
1868
- Fort Laramie Treaty, April 29 [Treaty with
"Sioux Nation"]
1868-1874
The Buffalo Harvest
Charles
Sumner, Opinion on the trial of Andrew Johnson, 1868
Excerpt
from: James W. Grimes, Opinion on the Trial of Andrew Johnson, 1868
Navajo
Treaty of 1868
1868 Jan 16, The refrigerated railroad car was
patented by William Davis, a fish dealer in Detroit. [see Nov 26, 1867]
1868 Feb 16, The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (B.P.O.E.) was
organized in New York City by members of the theatrical profession. Later, men
in other professions were permitted to join the social organization. The letters
E.L.K. are repeated in the titles of some of its officers, such as Esteemed
Leading Knight and Esteemed Loyal Knight..
1868 Feb 21, Pres. Johnson told Gen. Lorenzo Thomas (63) to go the War Dept.
with orders to remove Edwin Stanton from office and to assume the
responsibilities of Sec. of War.
1868 Feb 23, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (DuBois, d.1963) was born in Great
Barrington, Massachusetts. W.E.B. Du Bois was the first African American to earn
a doctorate from Harvard University. As a sociologist, he focused on the problem
of race for blacks in the United States. He became an influential leader of
black Americans, presenting an alternative to Booker T. Washington, whose
policies Du Bois considered too conservative and too accommodating to whites. Du
Bois, believing that blacks could achieve progress only through protest,
encouraged black nationalism and supported Pan-Africanism. He founded the
National Negro Committee which eventually became the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People. Du Bois also founded the Niagara Movement,
served as the NAACP's director of research and editor of its magazine Crisis,
and taught and published his philosophy at Atlanta University. W.E.B. Du Bois
died at the age of 95 in 1963.
1868 Feb 24, Impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson began. The
House of Representatives voted vote 126 to 47 to impeach President Andrew
Johnson following his attempt to dismiss Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton; the
Senate later acquitted Johnson. Sen. Edmund G. Ross of Kansas cast the last
deciding vote against impeachment. Democrats defended Johnson. 7 Republicans
cast "no" votes.
1868 Feb 24, The 1st US parade with floats was at
the Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama.
1868 Mar 2, University of Illinois opened.
1868 Mar 5, The Senate was organized into a court of impeachment to decide
charges against President Andrew Johnson.
1868 Mar 13, The impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson began in the U.S.
Senate.
1868 Mar 17, Postage stamp canceling machine patent was issued.
1868 Mar 20, The Jesse James Gang robbed a bank in Russellville, Kentucky, of
$14,000.
1868 Mar 23, Gov. Henry Haight signed an act that created the Univ. of
California and wed the insolvent College of California to the state with the
promised backing of 150,000 acres of federal land. The line "Westward the
course of empire takes its way" from a 1752 poem by Irish Bishop Berkeley
had earlier inspired the founders of Berkeley, Ca., to name their city and
university after Berkeley.
1868 Mar 23, University of California was founded
in Oakland, CA. Legislator John W. Dwinelle helped establish the Univ. of
California and Dwinelle Hall was named for him. The first chancellor was Clark
Kerr, for whom the Clark Kerr campus was named. Its first president was Henry
Durant for whom Durant Hall was named. Its 8th president was Benjamin Ide
Wheeler and the 17th president was Robert Gordon Sproul, for whom Sproul Plaza
was named. Later the Haas family of SF contributed $23.75 million on behalf of
Walter A. Haas Sr., who ran Levi Strauss & Co. for several decades. The
Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities was started with a $5 million
pledge from Ms. Townsend, a UC alumna.
1868 Mar 30, The trial of President Johnson began with opening statements.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase was the presiding judge in the
impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson. Chief Justice Chase insisted on
the observance of legal procedure, attempting to maintain some semblance of
non-partisanship.
1868 Apr, The US government and the Sioux Indians signed another treaty that
ended Red Cloud’s War, but did not last long.
1868 May 16, The U.S. Senate failed by one vote, cast by Edmund G. Ross, to
convict President Andrew Johnson as it took its first ballot on one of 11
articles of impeachment against him. Johnson, who came to office on Abraham
Lincoln's assassination in April 1865, was an honest but tactless man who made
many enemies in the Radical Republican Congress. In response to Johnson's
recurrent interference with Radical Reconstruction, the U.S. House of
Representatives drew up 11 articles of impeachment against the chief executive
in March 1868. Although the charges against him were weak, Johnson was tried by
the Senate as the Constitution provides.
1868 May 20, The Republican National Convention met in Chicago and nominated
Grant.
1868 May 22, The Great Train Robbery took place near Marshfield, Ind., as seven
members of the Reno gang made off with $96,000 ($98k) in cash, gold and bonds.
1868 May 26, The Senate impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson ended with
his acquittal as the Senate fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority
required for conviction. Edward Ross of Kansas cast the deciding vote.
1868 May 30, Memorial Day began when two women placed flowers on both
Confederate and Union graves. Memorial Day, which began in 1868 as Decoration
Day, was set aside to remember those who have died in the service of their
country. Celebrated on May 30 for the first 100 years, Memorial Day was
officially changed to the last Monday in May in 1968.
1868 May 31, The 1st Memorial Day parade was held
in Ironton, Ohio.
1868 Jun 1, The Texas constitutional convention met in Austin.
1868 Jun 1, James Buchanan (b. Apr 23, 1791), the
15th president of the United States, died near Lancaster, Pa. He was the only US
president to have never married. In 1961 Philip Shreiver Klein authored
"President James Buchanan: A Biography."
1868 Jun 22, Arkansas was re-admitted to the Union.
1868 Jun 23, Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for an invention he
called a "Type-Writer."
1868 Jun 25, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina and South
Carolina were re-admitted to the Union.
1868 Jun 25, Congress enacted legislation granting an eight-hour day to workers
employed by the Federal government.
1868 Jul 14, Alvin J. Fellows patented a tape measure.
1868 Jul 15, William Thomas Morton (b.1819), dentist, died in NYC. He was
responsible for the first successful public demonstration of ether as an
inhalation anesthetic. Morton's accomplishment was the key factor to the medical
and scientific pursuit that we now refer to as anesthesiology.
1868 Jul 20, The 1st use of tax stamps on cigarettes.
1868 Jul 23, The 14th Amendment was ratified, granting citizenship to African
Americans. It gave freed slaves full citizenship and equal protection under the
laws, however it did not spell out the extent of integration with white America.
1868 Jul 25, Congress passed an act creating the Wyoming Territory. [see Jul 25,
1867]
1868 Jul 28, The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees
citizenship to all those born or naturalized in the United States, was adopted.
The amendment was aimed primarily at assuring citizenship to blacks freed from
slavery by the Civil War.
1868 Jul 28, Pres. Johnson signed the Burlingame
Treaty. It was negotiated by Anson Burlingame, who represented the interests of
China, and committed the US to a policy of noninterference in Chinese affairs.
It also established commercial ties and provided unrestricted immigration of
Chinese to the US.
1868 Sep 8, The NY Athletic Club formed.
1868 Sep 17, The Battle of Beecher’s Island began, in which Major George
"Sandy" Forsyth and 50 volunteers held off 500 Sioux and Cheyenne in
eastern Colorado.
1868 Sep 22, Race riots took place in New Orleans, La.
1868 Sep 23, Grito de Lares proclaimed Puerto Rico's independence. It was
crushed by Spain.
1868 Sep 28, In the Opelousas Massacre at St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, 200
blacks were killed.
1868 Oct 7, Cornell University was inaugurated in Ithaca, N.Y.
1868 Oct 10, Cuba revolted for independence against Spain.
1868 Oct 11, Thomas Edison patented his 1st invention, an electric voice
machine.
1868 Oct 26, Whites killed several blacks in St. Bernard Parish, La.
1868 Nov 3, Republican Ulysses S. Grant was elected 18th president. He won the
election over Democrat Horatio Seymour by 27,000 votes. He used the 1867
typewriter phrase "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of
the party" for his campaign.
1868 Nov 9, The Colorado, a Pacific Mail side-wheeler steamer, was snagged off
the West coast at Montara, Ca. The shoal was later named Colorado Reef.
1868 Nov 27, Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer’s 7th Cavalry killed Chief
Blackkettle and about 100 Cheyenne (mostly women and children) on the Washita
River.
1868 Nov 28, Mt. Etna in Sicily erupted violently.
1868 Dec 1, John D. Rockefeller began anti oil war.
1868 Dec 5, 1st American bicycle college opened in NY.
1868 Dec 7, Jesse James gang robbed a bank in Gallatin, Missouri, and killed 1
person.
1868 Dec 12, In Indiana 56 hooded men entered New Albany jail. Frank Reno was
the first to be dragged from his cell to be lynched. He was followed by his two
brothers, William and Simeon. Another gang member, Charlie Anderson, was also
hanged in the prison. [see May 22]
1868 Dec 25, President Andrew Johnson granted an unconditional pardon to all
persons involved in the Southern rebellion that resulted in the Civil War.
1868 Susan B. Anthony, the suffrage leader, put out the first issue of "The
Revolution" in New York City.
1868 Frederick Law Olmsted began laying out the planned Riverside community
outside Chicago over 1,600 acres of Illinois prairie.
1868 The Virginia and Truckee railroad line was built to serve Virginia City, Nv.,
site of the richest silver strike in history. Ted Wurm (d.2004) later
co-authored with Harre W. Demoro "Silver Short Line," a history of the
line.
1868 Alpheus Hardy, a Boston merchant enriched by his clipper ships, built the
first cottage at Birch Point, Bar Harbor, Maine.
1868 In California Fort Bidwell in Modoc Ct. was established as a cavalry
outpost to protect settlers from Indians.
1868 Balboa Park in San Diego was established as a 1,200-acre recreational area.
1868 In Syracuse NY the Everson Museum of Art was founded.
1868 Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), a social reformer and militant
feminist, said, "The male element is a destructive force" in an
address to the Women’s Suffrage Convention in Washington, D.C.
1868 The first "chocolate box" was introduced by Richard Cadbury. It
depicted his daughter holding a kitten.
1868 The US established Memorial Day to honor Union soldiers killed in the Civil
War. It was first called Decoration Day. It was later expanded to honor all the
2.8 million soldiers killed in the service of the country.
1868 Riggs National Bank supplied the $7.2 million in gold bullion for the
purchase of Alaska.
1868 The "Ohio Idea," promulgated by Ohio
congressman George Pendleton, called for payment of the national debt with
greenbacks. This position was adopted by the Democrats at their 1868 convention.
The "Ohio Idea" was in opposition to the "hard money"
proponents who called for payments in gold. The 1869 Public Credit Act
officially repudiated the "Ohio Idea" with its provision for the
payment of government obligations in gold.
1868 A treaty between the government and Native Americans was signed that was
later interpreted by some Native Americans as an entitlement to surplus federal
lands. [perhaps the April treaty with the Sioux]
1868 Some 7,100 survivors of the Long Walk were released onto a New Mexico
reservation of 5,500 acres. The Navajo migrated and some returned to Hopi land
where 3.5 million acres , 1/6th of their former homeland, was returned.
1868 Charlotte "Charley" Parkhurst was the first woman to vote for US
president in California. The Santa Cruz female stagecoach driver impersonated a
man. In 1998 Pam Munoz Ryan wrote her biography: "Riding Freedom."
1868 In Nevada the Central Pacific Railroad came through Reno. The town had been
founded on the banks of the Truckee River by Myron Lake and was named after a
Civil War general. Lake's land was bought up by Charles Crocker, who had
surveyors lay out streets and a town for which he sold lots. The Crocker land
eventually came under the control of the Pacific Improvement Co., controlled by
Crocker, Huntington, Hopkins and Stanford.
1868 The SF-San Jose railroad line joined the
Southern Pacific Railroad and became a part of the statewide system.
1868 Gustav and Albert Goelitz, German emigrants, started the Goelitz candy
business in Illinois. The company later moved to California and invented the all
natural Jelly Belly jelly bean in 1976.
1868 Greenwood China was organized and by 1886 impressed its mark on ironstone
or white granite. Its mark used the New Jersey coat of arms and the company
produced dishes. It and Greenwood Pottery advertised together but went out of
business in 1933.
1868 Edwards Sands Frost of Biddeford Maine made his first designs for hooked
rugs. He devised a method of stenciling the designs on burlap and was credited
as the first person to mass produce hooked rugs.
1868 Over 100,000 Texas longhorn cattle came up the Chisholm Trail to the
Abilene, Ka., stockyards.
1868 Emily and Elizabeth Blackwell opened the world’s 1st medical school for
women, the Women’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary.”
1868 The cottony-cushion scale was accidentally introduced from Australia to
California and began wreaking havoc on the citrus crops. The pest was not
controlled until it was found that the lady bug beetle, Rodolia cardinalis, fed
on the scale in the 1880s.
1868 Another earthquake hit San Francisco.
1868 Kit Carson (b.1809), American scout and frontiersman, died. In 1999 David
Roberts authored "A Newer World: Kit Carson, John C. Freemont and the
Claiming of the American West."
Driving
the Last Spike (May 10, 1869) Follow the
builders of the U.S. railroad as they meet in Utah for the driving of the Golden
Spike.
John
Wesley Powell, Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its
Tributaries Explored in 1869, 1870, 1871, and 1872
1869 Jan-May, Chinese laborers on the Central
Pacific set a one-day record when they laid ten miles of track in one day across
the Utah desert. This beat the 4 mile record accomplished by Irish workers on
the Union Pacific line.
1869 Feb 2, James Oliver invented the removable tempered steel plow blade.
1869 Feb 6, Harper's Weekly published the 1st picture of Uncle Sam with chin
whiskers.
1869 Feb 15, Charges of treason against Jefferson Davis were dropped. Jefferson
Davis’ Mexican War exploits had led him directly to the Confederate White
House.
1869 Feb 20, Tenn. Gov. W.C. Brownlow declared martial law in Ku Klux Klan
crisis.
1869 Feb 26, 15th Amendment, guaranteeing right to vote, was sent to states.
1869 Mar 1, Postage stamps showing scenes were issued for 1st time.
1869 Mar 3, University of South Carolina opened to all races.
1869 Mar 4, Ulysses S. Grant was sworn in as the 18th president of the US.
1869 Mar 13, Arkansas legislature passed anti-Klan law.
1869 Mar 15, Cincinnati Red Stockings became the 1st pro baseball team.
1869 Apr 6, John and Isaiah Hyatt applied for a new patent using collodion to
manufacture billiard balls. They later named their product celluloid. It was
similar to that made by English inventor Alexander Parkes, who patented the
process in England in 1855. The new plastic could be molded and mass produced,
but was very flammable and exploded when struck with excessive force. [see Jun
15]
1869 Apr 8, American Museum of Natural History
opened in NYC.
1869 Apr 10, The US Congress increased the number of Supreme Court judges from 7
to 9.
1869 Apr 12, North Carolina legislature passed an anti-Klan Law.
1869 Apr 13, Steam power brake was patented by George Westinghouse.
1869 May 6, A special Southern Pacific train left Sacramento bound for Utah to
drive the final spike connecting the SP to the Union Pacific on May 8. The UP
train did not arrive until May 10.
1869 May 10, In the desert near Promontory, Utah, railway official Leland
Stanford, drove down a golden spike to unite the tracks from the east and the
west. The first transcontinental railroad was completed when the Union Pacific
Railroad--building west from Omaha, Nebraska--and the Central Pacific--building
east from Sacramento, California--met at Promontory Point, Utah. Recognizing
that transportation was essential to the economic development of the nation, the
U.S. Congress passed legislation in 1862 that provided for the construction of a
railroad linking the east and west coasts. A depression followed the completion
of the railroad and the Chinese became a target of ill-will as unemployment
soared. Engine 350 was the first one down the Union Pacific line and
commemorative platters were made for the occasion. In 1999 David Howard Bain
published "Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental
Railroad." In 2000 Stephen E. Ambrose authored "Nothing Like It in the
World, The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869."
1869 May 24, John Wesley Powell departed Green River City, Wyoming, with 9 men
on an expedition to explore the canyons of the Green and Colorado River. Over 3
years he led two expeditions to explore the Grand Canyon. Three members of the
first expedition were killed, reportedly by Indians. His written account was
suspected to be inflated if not fictitious. A 1997 novel by Oakley Hall,
"Separations," depicted the events.
1869 Jun 1, The Electric Voting Machine was patented by Thomas A. Edison.
1869 Jun 8, Ives W. McGaffey of Chicago patented
the 1st vacuum cleaner.
1869 Jun 9, Charles Elmer Hires sold his 1st root beer in Phila.
1869 Jun 15, Celluloid was patented in the USA. [see Apr 6]
1869 Jun 24, Mary Ellen "Mammy" Pleasant officially became the Voodoo
Queen in San Francisco, California.
1869 Jul, John Augustus Roebling, inventor of the steel wire cable and designer
of the Brooklyn Bridge, was killed in a construction accident at the outset of
construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. Roebling died of a tetanus infection from a
foot injury. He had earlier completed the first suspension bridge over the
Niagara gorge linking the US and Canada. His son and partner, Washington A.
Roebling, supervised the Brooklyn Bridge to its completion in spite of a
debilitating illness.
1869 Aug 10, O.B. Brown patented a moving picture projector.
1869 Aug 24, Cornelius Swarthout of Troy, New York, patented the waffle iron.
1869 Sep 6, 110 miners, a number of them young boys, were killed in coal mine
disaster which occurred early in the morning in Avondale, Pennsylvania, when a
fire broke out in a mineshaft, cutting off the miners' escape route and their
only source of air.
1869 Sep 13, Jay Gould and James Fisk attempted to control the US gold market.
1869 Sep 22, The Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first professional baseball team,
arrived in San Francisco after a rollicking, barnstorming tour of the West.
1869 Sep 24, Black Friday. Thousands of businessmen were ruined in a Wall Street
panic after financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk attempted to corner the gold
market.
1869 Sep 27, Wild Bill Hickok, sheriff of Hays City, Kan., shot down Samuel
Strawhim, a drunken teamster causing trouble.
1869 Oct 8, Franklin Pierce (64), the 14th president (1853-1857) of the United
States, died in Concord, N.H.
1869 Oct 16, A hotel in Boston became the 1st to have indoor plumbing.
1869 Oct 21, The 1st shipment of fresh oysters came West overland from
Baltimore.
1869 Nov 2, Sheriff Wild Bill Hickok lost his reelection bid in Ellis County,
Kan.
1869 Nov 8, The transcontinental railway arrived in Oakland, Ca., with a stop at
Suisun City. The Mariposa pulled 6 coaches into Oakland at 7th and Broadway.
1869 Nov 17, The Suez Canal was opened in Egypt, linking the Mediterranean and
the Red seas. The 100 mile canal eliminated a 4000-mile trip around Africa.
Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III, together with Ferdinand de Lesseps,
chief architect of the canal, led the first file of ships from on board the
French imperial yacht Aigle. It was financed by the
Rothschild banking empire. In 2003 Zacharay Karabell authored
"Parting the Desert: The Creation of the Suez Canal."
1869 Dec 10, Governor John Campbell signed a bill that granted women in the
Wyoming Territory the right to vote as well as hold public office. Esther Morris
had pressed state senator William Bright to sponsor the suffrage bill. Wyoming
became the 1st US state to enfranchise women.
1869 Dec 28, William Finley Semple of Mount Vernon, Ohio, patented chewing gum.
1869 The US federal government took 7,500 acres within the Cheyenne-Arapaho
reservation of Oklahoma for a military fort, Fort Reno. In 1997 the closed fort
was under control of the Agriculture Dept. and used for a small research
project.
1869 Daniel E. Sickles was appointed minister to Spain. A newspaper summed up
his career: "mail robber, spy, murderer, confidence man, general, satrap,
politician." In 2002 Thomas Keneally authored "American
Scoundrel," a biography of Sickles.
1869 Gambling in Nevada was legalized.
1869 John Brown - of the banking firm of Brown Brothers & Co. - put all of
his bank’s capital on the line to block a cornering of the gold market by Jay
Gould and Jim Fisk.
c1869 Edmund McIlhenny, banker, traveled to New Orleans and acquired some pepper
seeds from a man on the street, which he grew and used to develop a hot sauce
that he called Tabasco.
1869 100,000 young evergreens were sold at Christmas in New York City.
1869 In NYC Hart Island became the city’s graveyard. The island had also been
used as a Union training camp, a Confederate prison, a yellow-fever quarantine,
a lunatic asylum, a workhouse for aged inmates, a prison for WW II German
soldiers, an antiaircraft missile base, a rehab center for the homeless and drug
addicts, and a driving school for chronic traffic offenders.
1869 In Connecticut the Meriden Silver Plate Co. was founded.
1869 Alexander Turney Stewart (d.1860), Irish-born entrepreneur, founded Garden
City, NJ.
1869 Henry J. Heinz partnered with L.C. Noble to form Heinz & Noble in
Sharpsburg, Pa., selling fruit and vegetable preserves. They produced tomato and
walnut ketchup for 24 cents per gallon and sold them from whiskey barrels.
1869 Marcus Goldman, son of a German peasant, began to broker credit to diamond
and leather merchants near Wall Street. He later offered a partnership to his
son-in-law Sam Sachs. In 1999 Lisa Endlich published "Goldman Sachs: The
Culture of Success."
1869 Wells Fargo allowed Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Henry Huntington and
mark Hopkins (the Big Four) to gain controlling interest in exchange for the
exclusive rights to carry express over the Transcontinental Railroad.
1869 The Pacific Lumber Company was founded. It was headquartered in San
Francisco.
1869 Pillsbury was founded as a US flour milling company.
1869 Western Union formed Western Electric to make apparatus for the telegraph.
It was later subsumed into AT&A and then spun off as Lucent.
1869 George Westinghouse (1846-1914) introduced the railroad airbrake. The
device enabled the engineer to brake a train from the locomotive. Westinghouse
secured a patent for the first air brake, an invention that had a revolutionary
impact on railroad transportation, making high-speed travel safe. Westinghouse
already held patents for a rotary steam engine and other railroad equipment when
he incorporated the Westinghouse Air Brake Co. in 1869. He later invented an
automatic air brake for long freight trains. Westinghouse, who eventually held
more than 400 patents, turned his interest to electricity in 1885 and later
formed the Westinghouse Electric.
1869 The transcontinental railway arrived in Oakland.
1869 Frederick Marriott flew his unmanned Aviator Hermes Jr. over a field near
Millbrae and Burlingame in California. The machine was a gasbag filled with
hydrogen, and a steam engine turning rotors with attached delta wings guided by
men on the ground with ropes.
1869 John Boyle O’Reilly, Irish nationalist, spy, convict, and poet, escaped
by sea from an Australian prison camp and settled in Boston.
1869 The first Univ. of Mich. University Hospital opened in Ann Arbor. It was
the only university owned teaching hospital in the US.
1869 The petrified man hoax known as the "Cardiff Giant" was promoted
in New York, Boston, Albany and Syracuse. A 10 foot 4 ½ inch limestone statue
of a man was claimed to have been dug up in Cardiff, N.Y.
1869 Etienne Leopold Trouvelot (1827-1895), French artist, amateur entomologist
and immigrant to the US, imported gypsy-moth eggs to set up a silk production
project in the backyard of his Medford, Mass., home. The moth became a national
pest.
1869 A fire at Yellow Jacket Mine near Virginia
City, Nevada, killed 45 people.
1869 Henry J. Raymond, founder of the
New-York Daily Times, died of a heart attack in the apartment of his lover,
actress Rose Eytinge.
1870: Pneumatic Subway Working in secret
to hide his operation from Boss Tweed, who opposes it, Scientific American
publisher Alfred Ely Beach builds a pneumatic subway under Broadway in New York.
Beach's single subway car, which features upholstered chairs and chandeliers is
driven along the 300 foot tunnel by a 100 horsepower blower.
1870 Jan 2, Construction of Brooklyn Bridge
began. [see July, 1869]
1870 Jan 10, John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) and his brother William
incorporated the Standard Oil Company of Ohio. The original Standard Oil
Company, founded by John D. Rockefeller and three partners in 1870, was
incorporated in the state of Ohio.
1870 Jan 15, The Democratic party was represented
as a donkey in a cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper’s Weekly.
1870 Jan 19, Nathaniel Langford, agent of the Northern Pacific Railroad Co.,
presented a lecture in Wash. DC on the challenges of building a RR through the
northern Rockies and reported that Yellowstone Valley contained dozens of
geysers. This prodded Ferdinand Hayden to seek Congressional support for a
scientific expedition to the valley.
1870 Jan 23, American army forces, looking for Mountain Chief's band of hostile
Blackfoot Indians, fell instead upon Heavy Runner's peaceable Piegan band in
Montana and killed 173, many of them women and children.
1870 Jan 26, Virginia rejoined the Union.
1870 Feb 2, The "Cardiff Giant," supposedly the petrified remains of a
human discovered in Cardiff, N.Y., was revealed to be nothing more than carved
gypsum.
1870 Feb 3, 15th Amendment on Black suffrage was passed. [see Mar 30]
1870 Feb 5, The 1st motion picture was shown to a theater audience in
Philadelphia.
1870 Feb 9, The U.S. Army established the US National Weather Service.
1870 Feb 12, Women in the Utah Territory gained the right to vote.
1870 Feb 12, An official proclamation set April
15 as last day of grace for US silver coins to circulate in Canada.
1870 Feb 14, Esther Morris became the world’s first female justice of the
peace.
1870 Feb 15, Ground was broken for Northern Pacific Railway near Duluth, Minn.
1870 Feb 17, Mississippi became the 9th state readmitted to US after Civil War.
[see Feb 23]
1870 Feb 17, Nebraska, the last state needed to
secure ratification, approved the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution,
guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race.
1870 Feb 23, Mississippi was readmitted to the Union. [see Feb 17]
1870 Feb 23, Anton Burlingame, former Mass.,
legislator, former US ambassador to China and current Chinese diplomat, died in
Russia. He was returned to Boston for burial.
1870 Feb 25, Hiram Revels (Sen-R-MS) was sworn in as the 1st black member of
Congress.
1870 Feb 26, New York City’s first pneumatic-powered subway line was opened to
the public.
1870 Feb 26, Wyatt Outlaw, black leader of Union
League in North Carolina, was lynched.
1870 Mar 17, the Massachusetts Legislature authorized the incorporation of
Wellesley Female Seminary. It later became Wellesley College.
1870 Mar 18, The 1st US National Wildlife Preserve was Lake Meritt in Oakland,
Calif. Lake Merritt, actually a tidal lagoon, was named after Samuel Merritt, a
physician and one of the 1st mayors of Oakland.
1870 Mar 30, The 15th Amendment to the US Constitution, guaranteeing the right
to vote regardless of race, passed.
1870 Mar 30, Texas was the last Confederate state
readmitted to the Union.
1870 Apr 2, Victoria Claflin Woodhull (1838-1927) became the first woman to run
for president of the United States when she announced her candidacy for the 1872
election, but she spent Election Day in jail for sending obscene literature
through the mail. Woodhull challenged convention in Victorian-era America.
Victoria and her sister, Tennessee Claflin, got their start as spiritual
advisors to financier Cornelius Vanderbilt. With his backing, the sisters became
the first women to open their own successful brokerage firm.
1870 Apr 9, The American Anti-Slavery Society dissolved.
1870 Apr 13, The Metropolitan Museum of Art was
founded in New York City.
1870 Jun 9, Washington: Pres Grant met with Sioux chief Red Cloud.
1870 Jun 22, The US Congress created the Department of Justice.
1870 Jun 26, The first section of the famous boardwalk in Atlantic City, N.J.,
was opened to the public.
1870 Jun 30, Ada H. Kepley of Effingham, Ill., became America’s first female
law school graduate.
1870 Jul 15, Georgia became the last of the Confederate states to be admitted to
the Union.
1870 Jul 18, Pontifical infallibility was proclaimed at the Vatican Council. It
proclaimed as dogma that the Pope when speaking ex cathedra can make no mistake
in solemn declarations of what must be believed in matters of faith and morals.
The 20th ecumenical council, soon adjourned due to the outbreak of the
Franco-Prussian War.
1870 Jul 24, The 1st trans-US rail service began.
1870 Aug 6, White conservatives suppressed the black vote and captured Tenn.
Legislature.
1870 Aug 17, The 1st ascent of Mt. Rainier in
Washington state.
1870 Aug 17, Esther Morris was named a justice of
the peace in South Pass City, the first woman to hold public office in the US.
1870 Sep 20, Mayor William Tweed was accused of robbing the NY treasury.
1870 Oct 12, Gen. Robert E. Lee died in
Lexington, Va., at 63. In 1998 David J. Eicher published "Robert E. Lee: A
Life Portrait." In 2001 Michael Fellman authored "The Making of Robert
E. Lee."
1870 Oct 19, The 1st blacks (4) were elected to House of Reps.
1870 Oct 25, Postcards were 1st used in US.
1870 Nov 1, The U.S. Weather Bureau made its first meteorological observations,
using reports gathered by telegraph from 24 locations.
1870 Dec 12, Joseph H. Rainey became the first black lawmaker sworn into the
U.S. House of Representatives. Rainey, a Republican from South Carolina, filled
the seat made vacant by the expulsion of Representative Benjamin F. Whittemore.
Rainey served for 10 years.
1870 On the Oregon coast the Blanco Lighthouse was constructed at Cape Blanco.
1870 Harold Robinson, an ex-slave from Missouri, founded the Hotel Robinson in
Julian, Ca., a former gold-mining town near Anza Borrego Desert State Park. It
was later renamed the Julian Hotel.
1870 US Secret Service headquarters relocated to New York City.
1870 Alta, Utah, couched in a glacial-cut schism in the Wasatch Range, boomed
with silver mining and counted 5,000 inhabitants, 26 saloons, five breweries,
and one murder a night.
1870 George Grant (d.1910) became the 1st black graduate from Harvard Dental
School. He got the 1st patent for a golf tee in 1899.
1870 By this time San Francisco was the 10th largest US city.
1870 The US census categorized the population as "White, Black, Mulatto,
Chinese and Indian." The census counted employed women for the first time
with four-fifths tallied as working on farms or in domestic service.
1870 Federal census data of the southern end of Mulberry St. in New York City
showed 39 Italian men employed as organ grinders.
1870 George Dickel (d.1894), purchased a site in Cascade Hollow, Tenn., and soon
began producing Cascade Tennessee Whisky.
1870 E.H. Harriman (22) bought a seat on the new York Stock Exchange.
1870 Frederick August Otto Schwartz (FAO Schwartz) opened up his 1st NYC store
on Broadway called Schwartz Toy Bazaar.
1870 Two-thirds of all teachers in public and private schools were women.
1870 Charles Adams of New York began manufacturing his chewing gum "Charles
Adams Gum No 1" in a Manhattan warehouse.
1870 William Lyman of the US invented the home can opener, with a cutting wheel
that rolls around the rim.
1870 Woodsmen marched west to Michigan clearing forests of white pine, yellow
birch, hemlock, maple, and oak.
1870 The Chinese population in California grew to 50,000.
1870 There was an earthquake in Lone Pine, Ca., and some people died.
1870s The California Point Reyes Lighthouse was built on the foggiest point of
the entire Pacific coast.
1870s Anthony Comstock (1844-1915), self-appointed anti-vice crusader, devoted a
lifetime to battling wickedness, to purify America and protect its youth from
sin. Armed with exhibits showing young lives wrecked by pornography, Comstock
shepherded through the U.S. Congress with little opposition a stringent
anti-obscenity law known as the "Comstock Law." Pornography was
outlawed, but so was anything that could be described as "lewd, obscene,
lascivious, or filthy"--terms even modern courts find difficult to define.
Over the years, targets of Comstock's rigid definition of obscene have been
abortionists, sellers of contraceptive devices and even those merely
disseminating information about contraception, including medical doctors. After
his appointment as special postal agent in 1873, Comstock boasted that he had
seized thousands of pounds of obscene materials. By the time of his death in
1915, Victorian ideals of propriety were changing and Comstock had become a
parody of himself, but the Comstock Law and its impact on American culture
outlived him.
1870s The CP railroad advertised for farmers to come west to the Central Valley
of California. They promised land for $2.50 to $5 per acre, and not more than
$10. Furthermore settlers would not have to pay until the railroad conveyed
title.
1870s A depression hit the US following the Civil War.
1870s George Hearst (d.1891) built the Charcoal Kilns in Death Valley.
1870s Some 400 Hutterites, a sect of Anabaptists,
migrated from Europe to the US. They settled on three communal farms in South
Dakota.
1871
1871 Jan 3, Henry W. Bradley patented
oleomargarine in Binghamton, NY.
1871 Jan 17, The 1st cable car patented by Andrew S. Hallidie. It began service
in 1873.
1871 Jan 26, A US income tax, established during the Civil War, was
repealed.
1871 Feb 28, The 2nd Enforcement Act set federal control of congressional
elections.
1871 Mar 1, J. Milton Turner was named US minister to Liberia.
1871 Mar 3, Congress passed the Indian Appropriation Act,
which revoked the sovereignty of Indian nations and made Native Americans wards
of the American government. The act eliminated the necessity of treaty
negotiating and established the policy that tribal affairs could be managed by
the U.S. government without tribal consent.
1871 Mar 3, Congress established the civil
service system.
1871 Mar 22, William Holden of NC became the 1st US governor removed by
impeachment.
1871 Apr 15, 'Wild Bill' Hickok became the marshal of Abilene, Kansas.
1871 Apr 20, The US 3rd Enforcement Act allowed the
President to suspend writ of habeas corpus. [see Oct 17]
1871 Apr 30, Anglo and Mexican vigilantes killed 118 Apaches at Camp Grant,
Arizona, and kidnapped 28 children.
1871 May 12, Segregated street cars were integrated in Louisville, Ky.
1871 May 17, Gen. Sherman, Indian fighter, escaped in ambulance
