Events from the year 1862 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal government President: Abraham Lincoln (R-Illinois) Vice President: Hannibal Hamlin (R-Maine) Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland) Speaker of the House of Representatives: Galusha A. Grow (R-Pennsylvania) Congress: 37th
State governments Governors and lieutenant governors Governors
Lieutenant governors
Events
January January 3 – American Civil War: Battle of Cockpit Point fought in Virginia. January 8 – American Civil War: Battle of Roan's Tan Yard in Missouri. January 10 – John Gately Downey, 7th governor of California, is succeeded by Amasa Leland Stanford. January 19 – American Civil War: Battle of Mill Springs in Kentucky. January 30 – The first U.S. ironclad warship, , is launched at Greenpoint, Brooklyn. January 31 – Alvan Graham Clark makes the first observation of Sirius B, a white dwarf star, through an eighteen-inch telescope at Northwestern University. In the Great Flood of 1862, San Francisco receives of rainfall for January, its highest monthly rainfall on record, and the “rain year” total from July 1861 to June of is also the highest ever.San Francisco Monthly and Annual Rainfall
February February 1 – Julia Ward Howe's Battle Hymn of the Republic is published for the first time in the Atlantic Monthly. February 6 – American Civil War: General Ulysses S. Grant gives the Union Army its first major victory of the war, by capturing Fort Henry, Tennessee. February 15 – American Civil War: General Ulysses S. Grant attacks Fort Donelson, Tennessee and captures it the next day. February 21 – American Civil War: Battle of Valverde fought near Fort Craig in New Mexico Territory. February 22 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is officially inaugurated in Richmond, Virginia, to a 6-year term as president of the Confederate States of America.
March
March 7 – American Civil War: The Battle of Pea Ridge – The Confederates are shut out of Missouri. March 8 – American Civil War: The ironclad (formerly USS Merrimack) is launched at Hampton Roads, Virginia. March 8–9 – American Civil War: Battle of Hampton Roads – The first battle between two ironclad warships, and . 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 Law of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation. March 14 – American Civil War: Battle of New Bern fought in North Carolina. March 26–28 – American Civil War: Battle of Glorieta Pass – In New Mexico, Union forces succeed in stopping the Confederate invasion of New Mexico Territory.
April April 5 – American Civil War: Battle of Yorktown – The battle begins when Union forces under General George B. McClellan close in on the Confederate capital Richmond, Virginia. April 6–7 – American Civil War: Battle of Shiloh – Union Army under General Ulysses S. Grant defeats the Confederates near Shiloh, Tennessee. April 10 – American Civil War: Battle of Fort Pulaski – Union blockade closes Savannah, Georgia. The Parrott rifle, a field artillery weapon, demonstrates its ability to make masonry forts obsolete. April 12 – American Civil War: Great Locomotive Chase (Andrews' Raid) – Union volunteers steal Confederate steam railroad locomotive The General in an attempt to sabotage the Western and Atlantic Railroad. April 16 – Slavery in Washington, D.C. is abolished when the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act becomes law. April 25 – American Civil War: Capture of New Orleans – Forces under Union Admiral David Farragut occupy the Confederate city of New Orleans, Louisiana, securing access to the Mississippi. April 26 American Civil War: The besieged Confederate garrison at Fort Macon, North Carolina surrenders. The California Anti-Coolie Act.
May May 2 – The California State Normal School (later San Jose State University) is created by an Act of the California legislature. May 5 – American Civil War: Battle of Williamsburg – McClellan and Longstreet fight an inconclusive battle in Williamsburg, Virginia. May 9 – United States Naval Academy is relocated from Annapolis, Maryland to Newport, Rhode Island. May 11 – American Civil War: The ironclad CSS Virginia is scuttled in the James River northwest of Norfolk, Virginia. May 15 – President Abraham Lincoln signs a bill into law creating the United States Bureau of Agriculture (later renamed the Department of Agriculture). May 20 – President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law.
June
June 1 – American Civil War: Robert E. Lee takes command of the Army of Northern Virginia. Battle of Fair Oaks – Both sides claim victory. June 4 – American Civil War: Confederate troops evacuate Fort Pillow on the Mississippi River, leaving the way clear for Union troops to take Memphis, Tennessee. June 5 – President Abraham Lincoln signs a bill into law allowing for the appointment of diplomats to Liberia and Haiti, the first time Congress had recognized a Black government. June 6 – American Civil War: First Battle of Memphis – Union forces capture Memphis, Tennessee, from the Confederates June 8 – American Civil War: Battle of Cross Keys – Confederate forces under General Stonewall Jackson save the Army of Northern Virginia from a Union assault on the James Peninsula led by General George B. McClellan. June 11 – Nathan Bedford Forrest's disabled brother John N. Forrest shoots a master's mate of the at a brothel in Memphis, resulting in the expulsion, by the provost-marshal, of the city's prostitutes. June 12 – John Winter Robinson, Secretary of State of Kansas, is convicted and removed from office as the result of a bond scandal, becoming the first state executive officers to be impeached and removed from office in U.S. history. June 19 – Congress passes legislation outlawing slavery in U.S. territories. June 26 – American Civil War: Battle of Mechanicsville – Confederate General Robert E. Lee defeats Union General George McClellan in the first of the Seven Days' Battles.
July July – Taps first sounded in the Union Army. July 1 President Abraham Lincoln signs into law the Pacific Railway Acts, authorizing construction of the first transcontinental railroad."An Act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean, and to secure to the government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes 12 Stat. 489, July 1, 1862. The Bureau of Internal Revenue, forerunner of the Internal Revenue Service, is founded. July 2 – President Abraham Lincoln signs the Morrill Land Grant Act into law, creating land-grant colleges to teach agricultural and mechanical sciences across the U.S. July 8 – Theodore Timby is granted a U.S. patent for discharging guns in a revolving turret, using electricity. July 16 – American Civil War: David G. Farragut becomes the first United States Navy rear admiral. July 23 – American Civil War: Henry W. Halleck takes command of the Union Army. July 24 – Martin van Buren, 8th president of the United States, dies at Kinderhook, New York, aged 79. July 29 – American Civil War: Confederate spy Belle Boyd is arrested by Union forces after her lover betrays her.
August August 2 – American Civil War: Skirmish at Taberville, Missouri – Union forces force Confederate troops to march south, near Taberville. August 4 – 1862 Brooklyn riot: A mob consisting chiefly of Irish Americans targets a group of about 20 African American workers at a tobacco factory in the Cobble Hill neighborhood. August 5 – American Civil War: Battle of Baton Rouge – Along the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Confederate troops drive Union forces back into the city. August 6 – American Civil War: The Confederate ironclad is scuttled on the Mississippi River after suffering damage in a battle with near Baton Rouge, Louisiana. August 9 – American Civil War: Battle of Cedar Mountain – Confederate General Stonewall Jackson narrowly defeats Union forces under General John Pope at Cedar Mountain, Virginia. August 14 – U. S. President Abraham Lincoln meets with a group of prominent African-Americans – the first time a president has done so. He suggests Black people should migrate to Africa or Central America, but this advice is rejected. August 17 – Dakota War: A Lakota (Sioux) uprising begins in Minnesota as Lakota Sioux attack white settlements along the Minnesota River. They are overwhelmed by the U.S. military six weeks later. August 19 Dakota War: During an uprising in Minnesota, Lakota warriors decide not to attack heavily defended Fort Ridgely and instead turn to the settlement of New Ulm, killing white settlers along the way. Horace Greeley publishes an editorial, "The Prayer of Twenty Millions", in the New York Tribune, in which he urges President Abraham Lincoln to make abolition of slavery an official aim of the Union war effort. August 28–30 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Bull Run – Confederate forces inflict a crushing defeat on Union General John Pope. August 29 – Bureau of Engraving and Printing is formed and begins operation.
September
September 1 – American Civil War: Battle of Chantilly – Confederate General Robert E. Lee leads his forces in an attack on retreating Union troops in Chantilly, Virginia, driving them away. September 2 – American Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln reluctantly restores Union General George B. McClellan to full command after General John Pope's disastrous defeat at the Battle of Second Bull Run. September 5 American Civil War: 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. Confederate Alfred M. Rhett, a son of Fire-Eater Robert Barnwell Rhett, shoots and kills his commanding officer, William Ransom Calhoun, in a duel at Fort Sumter. September 17 American Civil War: Battle of Antietam – Union forces defeat Confederate troops at Sharpsburg, Maryland, in the bloodiest single-day battle in U.S. history, with over 22,000 casualties. American Civil War: The Allegheny Arsenal explosion results in the single largest civilian disaster during the war, with 78 workers – mostly young women – being killed. September 19 – American Civil War: Battle of Iuka – Union troops under Major General William Rosecrans defeat a Confederate force commanded by Major General Sterling Price at Iuka, Mississippi. September 22 – American Civil War: Preliminary announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln: From January 1, 1863, slaves in the Confederate States will be considered free.
October October 8 – American Civil War: Battle of Perryville – Union forces under General Don Carlos Buell halt the Confederate invasion of Kentucky by defeating troops led by General Braxton Bragg at Perryville, Kentucky. 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. October 24 – American Civil War: Tonkawa massacre – 300 members of the Confederacy-supporting Tonkawa tribe members taking refuge at the Wichita Agency (modern-day Fort Sill) are attacked by a large group of pro-Union Indians. An estimated 137 Tonkawas are killed, including their chief, Ha-shu-ka-na ("Can't Kill Him"). The completely-demoralized survivors flee to Fort Griffin in Texas in 1863. They return to Indian Territory in 1885 and settle near Fort Oakland (modern-day Tonkawa, Oklahoma).
November November 4 – Richard Jordan Gatling patents the Gatling gun. November 5 American Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln removes George B. McClellan as commander of the Union Army. Ambrose Burnside is assigned command of the Army of the Potomac.