Key Events in American History: 1862

President: Abraham Lincoln

VP: Hannibal Hamlin

Date, Event

January The Great Flood of 1862 occurs in San Francisco delivering 24.5" of rain in January

Feb 1st Battle Hymn of the Republic appears in the Atlantic Monthly

Feb 6th Ulysses S. Grant gives the Union its first victory of the Civil War in Tennessee

Feb 20th Abraham Lincoln's son dies

Feb 7th Civil War: Grant leads the Union to victory at the Battle of Shiloh (Tennessee)

May 20th Lincoln signs the Homestead Act giving 160 acres of land to any person over 21 to try their hand at farming

Jul 1st Abraham Lincoln signs the Pacific Railroad Acts, authorizing the First Transcontinental Railroad

July 2nd week of July - Hoarders collected all coin thus leaving no coinage at all in circulation

Jul 15-16 140 Union troops are ambushed by about 500 Apaches at the Battle of Apache Pass in Arizona

Jul 22nd First draft of the Emancipation Proclamation is written by Abraham Lincoln

Aug 17th The Dakota War of 1862 begins when a Sioux hunting party slaughters 5 white settlers

Sep 17th Battle of Antietam: Union forces defeat Confederate troops in MD in the bloodiest day in U.S. history

Nov 5th Abraham Lincoln removes General George McClellan as commander of the U.S. Army

Nov 5th Dakota War: More than 300 Sioux are found guilty of rape & murder & are sentenced to hang

Dec 31st Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia into the Union

Civil War continues (1861-1865)

Nov 4th Richard Jordan Gatling patents the Gatling gun

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (forerunner of the IRS) is founded

Louis Pasteur invents pasteurization

Aug 22nd Claude Debussy (Composer)

Jan 10th Samuel Colt (Inventor/Founder, Colt Manufacturing Co.)

Jan 18th John Tyler (10th President)

May 6th Henry David Thoreau (Poet/Abolitionist/Tax Resister/Author, "Walden")

Jul 24th Martin Van Buren (8th President)