Key Events in American History: 1865

President: Abraham Lincoln until April 15th, Andrew Johnson thereafter

VP: Hannibal Hamlin until March 4th; Andrew Johnson (March 4th - April 15th); vacant thereafter

Date, Event

  • Jan 7th Battle at Julesburg: 1,000 Cheyenne, Arapahoe & Lakota Indians defeat about 100 soldiers & civilians
  • Jan 8th Brigham Young marries his 50th bride
  • Feb 22nd Tennessee adopts a new constitution abolishing slavery
  • Mar 4th Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated for a second term as President
  • Apr 2nd General Lee & his Cabinet flee the Confederate capital of Richmond, VA
  • Apr 9th General Lee surrenders the Confederacy to U.S. Grant in the Appomattox Court House ending the Civil War
  • Apr 14th John Wilkes Booth shoots President Lincoln in Ford's Theatre while watching Our American Cousin
  • Apr 15th President Lincoln dies of his gunshot wound
  • Apr 15th Andrew Johnson becomes the 17th President of the United States
  • Apr 26th Union cavalry soldiers capture John W. Booth and shoot the assassin dead
  • Apr 27th The steamer Sultana explodes while carrying mostly freed Union soldiers home, killing 1,547
  • Jul 7th The conspirators of Lincoln's assassination are condemned to death and hanged
  • Jul 21st In what is considered to be the first western showdown, Wild Bill Hickok guns down Dave Tutt
  • Jul 30th The steamer Brother Jonathan sinks off the California-Oregon coast killing 225
  • Oct 25th The paddlewheel steamer SS Republic sinks off of the Georgia coast with a cargo of $400,000 in coins
  • Dec 18th The 13th Amendment abolishing slavery is ratified as part of the U.S. Constitution
  • Dec 24th The Ku Klux Klan is formed by 6 Confederate Army veterans

    • Other

  • Reconstruction of the South begins
  • Nov 18th Mark Twain publishes the Celebrate Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
  • During the Civil War, Sam Colt's weapons factory manufactured 387,017 pistols & 7,000 rifles
  • Hoarding of coins continues due to lack of confidence in paper money
  • The nickel 3-cent piece is introduced

    • Births

  • Nov 2nd Warren G. Harding (29th President)
  • Dec 30th Rudyard Kipling (Poet/Novelist, "The Jungle Book")

    • Deaths

  • Apr 15th Abraham Lincoln (16th President)