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Political Events

Allied German troops cross the Eider River into Schleswig-Holstein February 1 (see 1863). Prussians take the fortress at Düppel by storm April 18, the Danes sue for peace July 12, and Denmark loses half her territory October 30 under terms of a treaty signed at Vienna giving Austria and Prussia joint control of the two former Danish duchies (see Convention of Badgastein, 1865).

Bavaria's Maximilian II dies at his native Munich March 10 at age 52 after a 16-year reign in which Prussia and Austria have stymied his efforts to create a "third force" by allying himself with smaller German states. A staunch supporter of the hereditary prince Frederick of Augustenburg in the dispute over the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, Maximilian has introduced ministerial responsibility, ended press censorship, and made Munich an intellectual and artistic center. He is succeeded by his brilliant but insane 18-year-old son, who will reign until 1886 as Ludwig II, living as a recluse and feuding constantly with his ministers and family as he builds endless palaces (see Germany, 1871).

Britain cedes Corfu and other Ionian islands to Greece, having held the islands under a protectorate since 1815 but failed to gain favor among the inhabitants (see 1923).

Russian forces suppress a 17-month Polish insurrection that has spread to Lithuania and White Russia (see 1863). Despite protests from Paris, Polish autonomy is abolished. The Russian language is made obligatory in Polish schools, and proceedings are instituted against Polish Roman Catholic clergymen (see 1918).

St. Petersburg sends diplomat Nikolai, Graf Ignatiev as its minister to Constantinople. Now 32, he has pan-Slavic views that will make him a thorn in the side of Ottoman authorities over the course of the next 17 years as he encourages Christian Slavs throughout the empire to liberate themselves from Muslim rule.

Russia reforms her judiciary, abolishing class courts and setting up new courts modeled on the French system, which employs jury trials for criminal offenses and justices of the peace to deal with minor civil suits. Russia's Zemstvo Law establishes a system of local government boards that can levy taxes for local roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, and the like. Peasants, nobility, and townspeople are all to be represented on local zemstvos with no single class to have a majority.

President Lincoln calls February 1 for 500,000 men to serve for 3 years or the duration of the war.

General Sherman succeeds General Grant as commander of the Army of the Tennessee and occupies Meridian, Mississippi, February 14, destroying railroad tracks and supplies.

The Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley rams a torpedo into a Union warship anchored off Charleston the night of February 17, sinking the warship but going down herself along with her captain and crew, who have built their 40-foot-long vessel from an iron boiler, powered it with a hand crank, but have had no extra air supply.

Ulysses S. Grant is commissioned lieutenant general March 9 and given command of all Union armies March 10.

Union fire kills Confederate general A. P. Hill at Petersburg, Virginia, April 2 at age 39.

Generals Grant and Meade start across the Rapidan May 3 to invade the Wilderness. Union and Confederate forces battle indecisively at the first Battle of the Wilderness near Chancellorsville, Virginia, May 5 to 6, and at Spotsylvania Court House May 8 to 12. "I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer," says Grant May 11 in a dispatch to Secretary of War Stanton. General Jeb Stuart sustains mortal wounds at Yellow Tavern May 11 and dies at Richmond May 12 at age 31.

Some 6,000 Union troops under the command of General Franz Sigel clash with about 4,000 Confederate troops commanded by General John C. Breckenridge in northwestern Virginia, Breckenridge orders the 257 cadets of the 25-year-old Virginia Military Institute (VMI) at Lexington to join him in the fight north of New Market, General Scott Shipp marches the boy-cadets 80 miles in 3 days, and they help Breckenridge defeat Sigel May 15 at the Battle of New Market, capturing a battery, taking prisoners, and forcing Sigel to retreat, but 10 of the cadets are killed, 45 wounded.

The Supreme Court rules unanimously May 15 in Ex parte Vallandigham that it cannot issue a writ of habeas corpus in a military case and has no jurisdiction with regard to the military tribunal that found "Copperhead" Clement L. Vallandigham guilty 11 months ago of making "treasonable utterances." Sent to Bermuda by President Davis last year, Vallandigham traveled from there to Canada, campaigned from there for the Ohio governorship, lost by a vote of 288,000 to 187,000, reenters the United States June 14 in a flimsy disguise, and plunges back into national politics.

Sheridan's cavalry seizes a vital crossroads at Old Cold Harbor, Virginia, May 31 as Grant moves south for an attack on Richmond. Using new repeating carbines and shallow entrenchments, Sheridan's troopers hold back a Confederate counterattack as Grant's VI and XVIII Corps arrive, Grant faces Robert E. Lee for the first time, and Lee's 59,000 men defeat Grant's 109,000 Federals June 1 to 3 at the Battle of Cold Harbor, killing more than 7,000 while losing only 1,500. Confederate general Leonidas Polk dies June 14 at age 58 of wounds suffered at Pine Mountain, Georgia, Union forces besiege Petersburg, Virginia, beginning June 19.

Former Boston mayor and Harvard president Josiah Quincy delivers an address supporting President Lincoln and the Union but dies at Boston July 1 at age 92.

The U.S.S. Kearsarge sinks the C.S.S. Alabama off Cherbourg in June (see 1862; 1871). The Confederate cruiser has never seen a U.S. port, and her cannonballs have bounced off the Kearsarge, whose captain has had his crewmen hang iron anchor chains from her decks to protect her hull. C.S.S. Florida, completed at Liverpool slightly earlier and armed in the Bahamas, continues to threaten Union merchant shipping, but the Union uses subterfuge to capture her in the harbor of Bahia, Brazil, in October after she has destroyed 38 American ships. North Carolina-born Annapolis graduate James I. (Iredell) Waddell, 40, sails for England and takes command in October of the British-built Confederate cruiser Shenandoah; he sails for the Pacific, where he will virtually wipe out the New England whaling fleet, capture more than 30 prizes, commandeer some ships, and burn others. Depredations by the Confederate ships have diverted Union naval vessels from the blockade and driven up insurance rates to such heights that many owners have converted their ships to foreign registry, ending the dominance of the U.S. merchant marine.

The Battle of Kenesaw Mountain in Georgia June 27 ends in defeat for Sherman, who loses 1,999 dead and wounded. Confederate losses total 270.

Indiana-born General Lew (Lewis) Wallace, 37, blocks an attempted raid on Washington, D.C., July 9 (Battle of the Monocacy). Having saved Cincinnati last year, Wallace loses his battle with Virginia-born General Jubal Anderson Early, 47, who has 14,000 men to his 6,050 in the fight three miles south of Frederick, but he gains time for Grant's VI Corps and XIX Corps to arrive from the Army of the Potomac and defend Washington. Early loses fewer than 700 men as compared with 1,880 Union losses.

The Battle of Atlanta begins July 20, with Sherman commanding roughly 100,000 Union troops in a Union army that consists of General George H. Thomas's Army of the Cumberland, Ohio-born General James B. McPherson's Army of the Tennessee, and General John McAllister Schofield's Army of the Ohio. Opposing them is Kentucky-born General John Bell Hood, 33, whose reinforced Army of the Tennessee has about 60,000 men; Hood had an arm mangled last year at Gettysburg, lost a leg at Chicamauga, and must be strapped to his horse. The Confederacy has augmented its army since June with boys of 17 and men aged 45 to 50. McPherson is shot dead outside Atlanta July 22 at age 35. The second Battle of Atlanta (Ezra Church) July 28 ends in another defeat for Hood, who has sustained 10,000 casualties in the two battles with Sherman losing nearly as many.

Union sappers (a regiment of Pennsylvania coal miners) explode a mine beneath the Confederate fort at Petersburg July 30, Union troops rush into the huge resulting crater, but the general in command has failed to provide ladders, the men are trapped in the hole with no means to climb out. Brig. Gen. William Mahone, 37, orders his troops to fire on the bluecoats, and the Federals fall back with 2,864 killed and wounded, 929 missing. A Virginia-born civil engineer and railroad man, Mahone wins promotion in the field to major general (see transportation, 1865).

"Damn the torpedoes! Four bells, Captain Drayton, go ahead!" orders Union Admiral David Farragut, now 63, at the Battle of Mobile Bay August 5. Defying Confederate torpedoes (mines) that have sunk some Union ships at the narrow entrance to the bay, Farragut's flagship Hartford proceeds into the bay and gains a victory despite the best efforts of Admiral Franklin Buchanan, who continues to fight Union warships with his ram Tennessee after other vessels in his squadron have been captured or disabled. Farragut's victory is the first good news for the Union this year.

The Democratic Party convention at Chicago August 31 nominates George B. McClellan as its presidential candidate with a platform containing a resolution (written at the insistence of Ohio peace-at-any-price "Copperhead" Clement L. Vallandigham) that declares the war a failure that must be ended without delay, but McClellan repudiates the resolution and runs as a "War Democrat." "It is best not to swap horses while crossing the river," President Lincoln has said June 9 in an address to a delegation from the National Union League, he runs for a second term as a Union Party candidate, but although even he does not expect to win as Confederate troops continue to stymie his efforts he gains support from many "War Democrats" as the Union scores solid victories beginning in late summer.

Atlanta falls to Union forces after a 5-week siege, Hood evacuates the city on the night of August 31, and Sherman marches in September 2, capturing the Confederacy's key railway, supply, and medical center; drunken soldiers ride up and down the city's streets, and they burn Atlanta to the ground.

Sheridan defeats Jubal A. Early's Confederate cavalry September 19 at Winchester, Virginia, but 697 Union troops are killed, 3,983 wounded, 338 missing as compared with 276 Confederate dead, 1,827 wounded, 1,818 missing. Sheridan beats Early again September 22 at Fisher's Hill in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.

Confederate spy Rose Greenhow collects her book royalties in gold coin and embarks from England with fresh funds for the Southern cause (see 1863), but her ship is wrecked by a violent storm September 30 and she is drowned near Wilmington, North Carolina, at age 49, pulled down by the leather bag full of gold pieces around her neck.

Union forces prevail in the Battle of Cedar Creek October 19 as Sheridan clears the Shenandoah Valley of Southern troops. The Union has 32,000 troops for the encounter, Early only 21,000, but although Early's first attack routs the Union's VIII Corps and sends the rest of the bluejackets into fighting retreat, Sheridan returns from a command conference at Washington in time to mount a counterattack that drives back the Confederates and captures their supply echelon. Still, the Union suffers 5,672 casualties to Early's 2,910.

Chicago police and Union troops round up some 150 persons suspected of conspiring to release the 8,000 Confederate prisoners at the city's Camp Douglas, arming them, stuffing ballot boxes to defeat President Lincoln in the November presidential election, and force an end to the war on terms acceptable to the Confederacy. Intelligence director LaFayette C. Baker has personally uncovered and broken up the "Northwest Conspiracy," whose terrorist members have plotted to use arson and other means to bring the war to the North. Camp Douglas has been understaffed, many of its internees have escaped by bribing guards, digging tunnels, or simply knocking down walls, the plot to free them is aborted, but by April of next year about 6,000 will have died at the facility of cholera, diphtheria, or other disease and been buried in mass graves in Oakwood Cemetery.

President Lincoln wins reelection in November as Union forces gain the upper hand. Nevada has been admitted to the Union as the 36th state before the election (see commerce [Comstock Lode], 1859), and Montana Territory has been formed out of Idaho Territory May 26 as prospectors flock to the gold fields of Virginia City (see commerce, 1863). The president wins 55 percent of the popular vote, takes 22 of the 25 participating states, and gaining 212 electoral votes to 21 for his Democratic challenger George B. McClellan, who appeared poised to win a few months earlier but has wound up carrying only Delaware, Kentucky, and New Jersey.

Sherman leads his army of 60,000 on a "march to the sea" beginning November 16 and proceeds to cut a mile-wide swath through Georgia, burning farms and factories, seizing foodstuffs, and leaving a wasteland in his wake. The Battle of Franklin November 30 ends in disaster for Hood, who has attempted to strike behind Sherman's lines. Hood makes a frontal assault on Schofield, now 33, south of Nashville and sustains terrible casualties—1,750 dead, including six general officers, 3,800 wounded, while Union losses total 189 dead, 1,033 wounded.

Boston widow Lydia Bixby receives a letter signed A. Lincoln from the Executive Mansion at Washington, D.C., and dated November 21: "Dear Madam,— I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save." Mrs. Bixby is a Confederate sympathizer, she detests Lincoln and destroys the letter (it will later be printed in the Boston Transcript), it was probably written not by Lincoln but rather by his secretary John Hay, and it will turn out that only two Bixby boys died in battle, one having deserted, another been honorably discharged, and a third either deserted or died a prisoner of war.

Union forces use the hand-cranked Gatling gun invented in 1861 to help defeat Hood at the Battle of Nashville in mid-December. General Thomas has 49,773 men to Hood's 31,000, he outflanks the Confederates, whose army falls apart after 1,500 have been killed or wounded and 4,462 taken prisoner. Union casualties total 499 dead, 2,562 wounded.

Sherman occupies Savannah December 22 and sends a dispatch to President Lincoln: "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah."

Former vice president George F. Dallas dies at Philadelphia December 31 at age 72.

A Spanish fleet sets out in April for Peru, where workers attacked Basque immigrants 2 years ago at Talambo (see 1821). Madrid sent an investigator with the title of viceroy, the government at Lima felt slighted at the questioning of its sovereignty and refused to deal with him, the fleet occupies the guano-rich Chincha (Bedbug) Islands 12 miles off the coast, and President General Juan Antonio Pezet obtains their return only by acceding to Spanish demands for an indemnity; his action creates a furor, and hostilities will continue until 1866 (see 1865).

Austria's Archduke Maximilian accepts the throne of Mexico April 10 and reaches Mexico City June 12, having taken the same route used by Winfield Scott in 1847 (see 1863). French troops help to drive Benito Juárez across the northern border into the United States; former president Antonio López de Santa Anna tries to obtain U.S. support for the ouster of Maximilian while also offering his services to Maximilian, but he is rebuffed by both Washington and the French (see 1865).

Paraguayan dictator Francisco Solano López declares war on Argentina, whose president Bartolomé Mitre takes command of his country's military with help from former president Justo José de Urquiza. Solano López sends Brazil an ultimatum August 31 demanding that she not intervene in Uruguay; Brazil invades Uruguay's Banda Oriental in October, and López seizes an arms-laden Brazilian steamer November 12 (see 1865).

Irish patriot William Smith O'Brien dies at Bangor, Wales, June 18 at age 60.

The Charlottetown Conference convened September 1 on Canada's Prince Edward Island (PEI) discusses the possibility of a union of the Maritime Provinces. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have each sent five delegates to meet with five from PEI; eight from the Province of Canada arrive September 2 and argue for a union that would include Canada. The Maritime delegates meet by themselves September 7 to discuss the original proposal, they fail to reach agreement, but they reconvene September 10 and 12 at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and from October 10 to October 27 at Quebec, where they draft a constitution for a proposed federal union (see British North America Act, 1867).

The West African Tukolor leader Umar Tal escapes the besieged city of Hamdalahi, holes up in a nearby cave, but is killed February 17 at age 66 (approximate) when Tuareg, Fulani, and Moorish troops blow up the cave with gunpowder.

The "Ever Victorious [British] Army" of General Charles G. "Chinese" Gordon helps Qing (Manchu) forces under Zeng Guofan (Tseng Kuo-fan) capture the Taiping capital of Nanjing (Nanking) and sack the city after a short siege. Hong Xiuquan (Hung Hsiu-chuan) takes poison, more than 100,000 of his followers are killed between July 19 and 21, and the Taiping Rebellion that began in 1850 is ended (see 1860; Korea, 1876; "Open Door Policy," 1899).

British forces return to Bhutan (see 1772). They will defeat a Bhutanese army next year and force the Bhutanese to sign a treaty ceding control of their southern passes to the British and agreeing to accept an annual subsidy in return for letting the British mediate any future dispute with their neighbors.

French forces in Cambodia force Siam to return the royal regalia, and King Norodom is crowned at Oudong in June with French and Siamese officials in attendance (see 1863). He will be installed as king at Phnom Penh in 1866, and Siam will officially acknowledge the French protectorate over Cambodia in 1867.

Vietnam's emperor Tu Duc adds some modifications favoring his country in the treaty proposed last year by Phan Thanh Gian and approved by the French; he reneges on some points, however, and although the new treaty is signed, the French next year will declare that they will abide only by the terms of the original 1862 treaty (see 1867).

British, Dutch, French, and U.S. warships shell the Japanese port of Shimonoseki in August to retaliate for last year's attack on merchant shipping in the strait separating Honshu and Kyushu (Satsuma). The port is largely destroyed, Koshaku Yamagata is wounded, and the strait is reopened to ships of all nations. Revolutionary Issei Maebara, 30, joins the uprising, but the incident forces members of the Sonnō Jōi movement to recognize that their anti-foreign position is hopeless in the absence of weapons equal to those of the Western powers. The shōgun Iemochi Tokugawa's regent Keiki Tokugawa sends a punitive expedition to Chōshu and defeats the rebel forces. A more conservative government is installed, but no sooner have the shōgun's men left than irregulars organized by revolutionary Shinsaku Takasugi, 24, with help from scholar-strategist Masujiro Omura, 40, attack the conservative government's forces in Chōshu, defeat them, and restore a radical group to power (see 1865).

Korea enthrones the boy king Kojong whose father, Taewon-gun (Yi Ha-ung), 43, serves as regent and begins a series of reforms aimed at rationalizing and strengthening the central administration, modernizing and expanding the military, while opposing any concessions to Japan or to the West (see 1866).