Directory

1862 CE

Global financial group UBS is founded in Switzerland as the Bank in Winterthur. Battle of Baton Rouge – Along the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Confederate troops drive Union forces back into the city. American Indian Wars: In Minnesota, more than 300 Santee Sioux are found guilty of rape and murder of white settlers, and are sentenced to hang.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • February 22 – Jefferson Davis is officially inaugurated in Richmond, Virginia, to a six-year term as president of the Confederate States.source
  • May 15 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs a bill into law creating the U.S. Bureau of Agriculture (later renamed U.S. Department of Agriculture).source
  • May 20 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law.source
  • June 5 – Treaty of Saigon: Emperor Tự Đức of the Nguyễn dynasty in Vietnam cedes Saigon, Côn Sơn Island and three southern provinces of what is to become known as French Cochinchina (Biên Hòa, Gia Định and Định Tường) to become part of the French colonial empire. Guerilla leader Trương Định refuses to recognize the treaty.source
  • July 2 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the Morrill Land-Grant Act into law, creating a system of land-grant colleges, to teach agricultural and mechanical sciences across the United States.source
  • September 10 – Francisco Solano López is appointed second President of Paraguay.source
  • September 22 – American Civil War: The preliminary announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation is made by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln: From January 1, 1863, slaves in the Confederate States will be considered free.source
  • September 22 – Otto von Bismarck becomes Minister President of Prussia, following refusal by the country's Landtag to accept the military budget.source
  • September 26 – Johann II, Prince of Liechtenstein signs into law the 1862 Constitution of Liechtenstein.source
  • September 29 – New Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarck delivers his Blood and Iron (Blut und Eisen) speech to the Prussian Landtag.source
  • October 23 – Otto is deposed as King of Greece.source
  • October 24 – Ramón Castilla loses the Presidency of Peru for a second time.source
  • December 1 – In his State of the Union address, President Abraham Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery, as he ordered ten weeks earlier in his Emancipation Proclamation.source
  • U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union, thus dividing Virginia into two.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 6 – French intervention in Mexico: French, Spanish and British forces arrive in Veracruz, Mexico.source
  • February 11–16 – Battle of Fort Donelson – General Ulysses S. Grant attacks Fort Donelson, Tennessee, capturing it on the last day.source
  • March 8 – Ironclad (formerly USS Merrimack) is launched at Hampton Roads, Virginia; the Battle of Hampton Roads starts the same day.source
  • March 13 – American Civil War: The U.S. federal government forbids all Union army officers from returning fugitive slaves, thus effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation.source
  • April 1 – Second French intervention in Mexico: The Spanish and the British ended their alliance with France.source
  • April 6–7– Battle of Shiloh – The Union Army, under General Ulysses S. Grant, defeats the Confederates near Shiloh, Tennessee.source
  • May 5 – Second French intervention in Mexico: Battle of Puebla – Mexican General Ignacio Zaragoza defeats the French Army; commemorated each year as Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for Fifth of May).source
  • June 8 – Battle of Cross Keys – Confederate troops under General Stonewall Jackson save the Army of Northern Virginia from a Union Army attack on the James Peninsula that is led by General George B. McClellan.source
  • June 26 – American Civil War: Battle of Mechanicsville – Confederate General Robert E. Lee defeats the troops of General George B. McClellan in the first of the Seven Days Battles.source
  • July 23 – American Civil War: Henry Halleck takes command of the Union Army.source
  • August 5 – Battle of Baton Rouge – Along the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Confederate troops drive Union forces back into the city.source
  • August 6 – Confederate ironclad is scuttled on the Mississippi River after suffering damage in a battle with , near Baton Rouge, Louisiana.source
  • August 9 – Battle of Cedar Mountain – Confederate General Stonewall Jackson narrowly defeats Union forces under General John Pope at Cedar Mountain, Virginia.source
  • August 17 – The Dakota War of 1862 begins in Minnesota, as Dakota Sioux attack white settlements along the Minnesota River. They are overwhelmed by the U.S. Army six weeks later.source
  • August 19 – Dakota War of 1862: During an uprising in Minnesota, Dakota warriors decide not to attack heavily defended Fort Ridgely and instead turn to the settlement of New Ulm, killing white settlers along the way.source
  • August 28–30 – Second Battle of Bull Run – Confederate forces inflict a crushing defeat on Union General John Pope.source
  • September 2 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln restores Union General George B. McClellan to full command, after General John Pope's disastrous defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run.source
  • September 5 – In the Confederacy's first invasion of the North, General Robert E. Lee leads 55,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River at White's Ford near Leesburg, Virginia, into Maryland.source
  • October 8 – American Civil War: Battle of Perryville – Union Army forces under General Don Carlos Buell halt the Confederate invasion of Kentucky by defeating troops led by General Braxton Bragg at Perryville, Kentucky.source
  • October 11 – American Civil War: In the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam, Confederate General J. E. B. Stuart and his men loot Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, during a raid into the North.source
  • October 25 – In the Granadine Confederation (modern-day Colombia), rebel troops of the southern states defeat government forces.source
  • November 14 – President Abraham Lincoln approves the plan by General Ambrose Burnside to capture the Confederate capital city of Richmond, Virginia. This plan leads to a disastrous Union defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13.source
  • December 13 – Battle of Fredericksburg – The Union Army suffers massive casualties and abandons its attempts to capture the Confederate capital city of Richmond, Virginia.source
  • December 26–29 – Battle of Chickasaw Bayou – Another victory for the Confederate Army, outnumbered two to one, results in six times as many Union casualties, defeating several assaults commanded by Union general William T. Sherman.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • July 4 – Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll) extemporises the story that becomes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, for ten-year-old Alice Liddell and her sisters, on a rowboat trip on The Isis from Oxford to Godstow.source
  • December 12 – Yazoo Pass Expedition – Union ironclad gunboat is sunk by a remotely-detonated "torpedo" (naval mine) while clearing mines from the Yazoo River, the first armored ship sunk by mine.source
  • Donald McIntyre builds a settlement in northwest Queensland (Australia) which becomes the town of Julia Creek (named after his niece).source

Religion & Belief

  • October 9 – The Transvaal Civil War breaks out, following Stephanus Schoeman's unconstitutional ousting of the acting President of the Executive Council of the South African Republic.source

Economy & Finance

  • April 22 – Global financial group UBS is founded in Switzerland as the Bank in Winterthur.source
  • Iwai Fumisuke Shoten (岩井文助商店), predecessor of Japanese conglomerate Sojitz, is founded in Osaka.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • January 30 – American Civil War: The first U.S. ironclad warship, , is launched in Brooklyn.source
  • February 2 – The first railway is opened in New Zealand, by the Dun Mountain Copper Mining Company.source
  • March 17 – The first railway line in Finland, between the cities of Helsinki and Hämeenlinna, is officially opened.source
  • April 12 – Great Locomotive Chase (Andrews' Raid) – Union volunteers steal Confederate steam railroad locomotive The General (which will still exist in the 21st century) in an attempt to sabotage the rail network.source
  • May 24 – Westminster Bridge is opened across the Thames in London. This new iron bridge, designed by Thomas Page, replaces the previous stone one.source
  • July 1 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs into law the Pacific Railroad Acts, authorizing construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad.source
  • July 18 – Dent Blanche, one of the highest summits in the Alps, is first ascended.source
  • August 21 – The Vienna Stadtpark opens its gates.source
  • November 4 – Richard Jordan Gatling patents the Gatling gun in the United States.source
  • Japanese construction company Satō Kōgyō is founded in Toyama as Satō-gumi.source

Science & Discovery

  • 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 Illinois.source

Health & Medicine

  • March 13 – A smallpox epidemic in San Francisco spreads to British Columbia.source
  • December 2 – The first United States Navy hospital ships enter service.source

Crime & Justice

  • June 12 – John Winter Robinson, the Secretary of State of Kansas, is convicted and removed from office as the result of a bond scandal, becoming the first state executive official to be impeached and removed from office in American history.source
  • November 5 – American Indian Wars: In Minnesota, more than 300 Santee Sioux are found guilty of rape and murder of white settlers, and are sentenced to hang.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • January 16 – Hartley Colliery disaster in north-east England: 204 men are trapped and die underground when the only shaft becomes blocked.source
  • March 6 – An ammunition warehouse explosion in San Andres Chalchicomula, Mexico, kills between 1,400 and 2,280 during the Second French intervention in Mexico.source
  • December 17 – General Order No. 11, which expels all Jews from his military district, is issued by General Ulysses S. Grant. This order is rescinded just a few weeks later.source
  • December 30 – sinks in a storm in the Atlantic, off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.source
  • December – Peruvian slave raiders land on Easter Island, beginning a decade of the destruction of the society and population on the island.source

Culture & Society

  • February 1 – American Civil War: Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic" is published for the first time in the Atlantic Monthly.source
  • March 31 – Victor Hugo's epic French historical novel Les Misérables begins publication in Brussels.source
  • May 1–November 1 – The 1862 International Exhibition is held at South Kensington in London; it is particularly noteworthy for an exhibit from Japan, influential in the development of Anglo-Japanese style.source
  • May 2 – The California State Normal School (later San Jose State University) is created by an Act of the California legislature.source
  • July 1 – The Russian State Library is founded, as The Library of the Moscow Public Museum.source
  • July 1 – Princess Alice, the second daughter of Queen Victoria, marries Prince Ludwig of Hesse and by Rhine.source
  • July 1 – The Bureau of Internal Revenue, the forerunner of the Internal Revenue Service, is established in the United States.source
  • August 19 – Horace Greeley publishes an editorial, "The Prayer of Twenty Millions", in the New York Tribune, in which he urges U.S. President Abraham Lincoln to make abolition of slavery an official aim of the Union war effort.source
  • November 28 – Notts County F.C. is founded in Nottingham, England, making it (by the 21st century) the world's oldest professional Association football team.source
  • Anglo-Indian teacher Anna Leonowens accepts an offer made by the Siamese consul in Singapore, Tan Kim Ching, to teach the wives and children of Mongkut, the King of Siam.source

Births

  • February 3 – James Clark McReynolds, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1946)source
  • March 25 – George Sutherland, American politician, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1942)source
  • March 28 – Aristide Briand, French politician, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1932)source
  • April 2 – Nicholas Murray Butler, American president of Columbia University, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1947)source
  • April 11 – Charles Evans Hughes, American jurist, politician, Chief Justice of the United States (d. 1948)source
  • June 7 – Philipp Lenard, Hungarian–German physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics (d. 1947)source
  • July 2 – William Henry Bragg, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1942)source
  • July 16 – Ida B. Wells, American journalist, suffragist, and anti-lynching crusader (d. 1931)source
  • August 5 – Joseph Merrick (the Elephant Man), English sufferer from deformities (d. 1890)source
  • August 29 – Andrew Fisher, 5th Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1928)source
  • August 29 – Maurice Maeterlinck, Belgian writer, Nobel Prize in Literature laureate (d. 1949)source
  • September 11 – Julian Byng, 1st Viscount Byng of Vimy, British general, 12th Governor General of Canada (d. 1935)source
  • September 12 – Carl Eytel, German-American artist working in Palm Springs, California (d. 1925)source
  • November 15 – Gerhart Hauptmann, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1946)source

Deaths

  • February 3 – Jean-Baptiste Biot, French physicist, astronomer and mathematician (b. 1774)source
  • February 7 – Francisco de Paula Martínez de la Rosa y Berdejo, Prime Minister of Spain (b. 1787)source
  • February 20 – William Wallace "Willie" Lincoln, third son of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln (b. 1850)source
  • April 6 – Albert Sidney Johnston, American Confederate general (b. 1803)source
  • April 10 – W. H. L. Wallace, American Civil War Union general (died of wounds) (b. 1821)source
  • May 6 – Henry David Thoreau, American author, philosopher (b. 1817)source
  • May 16 – Edward Gibbon Wakefield, English theorist of colonization (b. 1796)source
  • May 25 – Juana Azurduy de Padilla, South American guerrilla military leader (b. c. 1781)source
  • May 29 – Henry Thomas Buckle, English historian sometimes called "the father of scientific history" (b. 1821)source
  • June 17 – Charles Canning, 1st Earl Canning, English Viceroy of India (b. 1812)source
  • July 24 – Martin Van Buren, 79, 8th President of the United States (b. 1782)source
  • September 6 – John Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1780)source
  • November 7 – Bahadur Shah II, 19th and Last mughal emperor (b. 1775)source
  • December 13 – Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb, American Confederate general (killed in action) (b. 1823)source