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Events from the year 1865 in the United States. The American Civil Warends with the surrender of the Confederate States, beginning the Reconstruction era of U.S. history.
Lieutenant Governor of Kansas: Thomas Andrew Osborn (Republican) (until January 9), James McGrew (Republican) (starting January 9)
Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: vacant
Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Benjamin W. Pearce (Democratic) (until March 4), Albert Voorhies (Republican) (starting March 4)
Lieutenant Governor of Maryland: Christopher C. Cox (Unionist)
Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Joel Hayden (political party unknown)
Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: Charles S. May (Republican) (until month and day unknown), Ebenezer O. Grosvenor (Republican) (starting month and day unknown)
Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Paul Dillingham (Republican) (until October 13), Abraham B. Gardner (Republican) (starting October 13)
Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: Samuel Price (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), Leopold Copeland Parker Cowper (Whig) (starting month and day unknown)
March 4: Andrew Johnson becomes the 16th U.S. Vice President
January–March[]
January 13 – American Civil War: The Second Battle of Fort Fisher begins when United States forces launch a major amphibious assault against the Confederate stronghold of Fort Fisher, North Carolina.
January 15 – American Civil War: United States forces capture Fort Fisher.
January 31 – American Civil War: Confederate General Robert E. Lee becomes general-in-chief.
February 17 – American Civil War: Columbia, South Carolina burns as Confederate forces flee from advancing Union forces.
February 22 – Tennessee adopts a new constitution that abolishes slavery.
March 3 – The U.S. Congress authorizes formation of the Freedmen's Bureau.
March 4 – President Abraham Lincoln begins his second term. Andrew Johnson is sworn in as Vice President of the United States.
March 13 – American Civil War: The Confederate States of America agrees to the use of African American troops.
March 18 – American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States of America adjourns for the last time.
March 19 – American Civil War: The Battle of Bentonville begins; by the end of the battle on March 21 the Confederate forces retreat from Four Oaks, North Carolina.
March 21 – The University of Kansas was founded when the Board of Regents held its first meeting.
March 25
American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces capture Fort Steadman from the Union. Lee's army suffers heavy casualties during the Battle of Fort Stedman—about 2,900, including 1,000 captured in the Union counterattack. Confederate positions are weakened. After the battle, Lee's defeat is only a matter of time.
The "Claywater Meteorite" explodes just before reaching ground level in Vernon County, Wisconsin; fragments having a combined mass of 1.5 kg are recovered.
April–June[]
Fires in Richmond, Virginia, burn out of control in the largely abandoned city after Evacuation Sunday (April 2)
April 9: Robert E. Lee surrenders
April 14: Lincoln assassinated
April 15: Johnson succeeds Lincoln as the 17th U.S. President
April 1 – American Civil War: Battle of Five Forks – In Petersburg, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee begins his final offensive.
April 2 – American Civil War: "Evacuation Sunday" – Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his cabinet flee the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, which is taken by Union troops the next day.
April 3 – American Civil War: Richmond is captured by Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant.
April 9 – American Civil War: General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Court House, effectively ending the Civil War.
April 14 (Good Friday)
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: Actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth shoots and mortally wounds U.S. PresidentAbraham Lincoln while Lincoln is attending an evening performance of the farceOur American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.
U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and his family are attacked in his home by Lewis Powell.
April 15 – President Lincoln dies of his gunshot wound early this morning and Vice President Andrew Johnson becomes the 17th President of the United States.
April 18 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his entire cabinet arrive in Charlotte with a contingent of 1,000 soldiers.
April 26
American Civil War: Confederate States Army General Joseph E. Johnston surrenders to Union Army Major General William Tecumseh Sherman at Durham Station, North Carolina.
Union cavalry corner John Wilkes Booth in a Virginia barn, and cavalryman Boston Corbett fatally shoots the assassin.
April 27
The steamboatSultana, carrying 2,300 passengers (and news of Lincoln's assassination), explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1,800, mostly Union survivors of the Andersonville Prison.
Governor of New YorkReuben Fenton signs a bill formally creating Cornell University.
April 28 – University Club of New York incorporated.
May 4 – American Civil War: Lieutenant General Richard Taylor, commanding all Confederate forces in Alabama, Mississippi, and eastern Louisiana, surrenders his forces to Union General Edward Canby at Citronelle, Alabama, effectively ending all Confederate resistance east of the Mississippi.
May 5
Jefferson Davis meets with his Confederate Cabinet (14 officials) for the last time, in Washington, Georgia, and the Confederate Government is officially dissolved.
In North Bend, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati), the first train robbery in the United States takes place.
May 10
American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is captured by Union troops near Irwinville, Georgia.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute is founded in Massachusetts.
May 12–13 – American Civil War: Battle of Palmito Ranch – In far south Texas, more than a month after Confederate General Lee's surrender, the last land battle of the Civil War with casualties ends with a Confederate victory.
May 23 – Grand Review of the Armies: Union Army troops parade down Pennsylvania Avenue (Washington, D.C.) to celebrate the end of the Civil War.
May 25 – Mobile magazine explosion: 300 are killed in Mobile, Alabama when an ordnance depot explodes.
May 26 – Indigenous tribes who have supported the Confederate States of America hold the Camp Napoleon Council in Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma).
June 2 – American Civil War: Confederate forces west of the Mississippi under General Edmund Kirby Smith surrender at Galveston, Texas under terms negotiated on May 26, becoming the last to do so.
June 19 – American Civil War: Union Major General Gordon Granger lands at Galveston and informs the people of Texas of the Emancipation Proclamation (an event celebrated in modern times each year as Juneteenth).
June 23 – American Civil War: At Fort Towson in Indian Territory, Confederate General Stand Watie, a Cherokee Indian, surrenders the last significant Confederate army.
April 27: Sultana burns
July–September[]
July 5 – The U.S. Secret Service is founded.
July 6 – The Nation political magazine begins publication.
July 7 – Following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 14, the 4 conspirators condemned to death during the trial are hanged: David Herold, George Atzerodt, Lewis Powell and Mary Surratt. Her son, John Surratt, escapes execution by fleeing to Canada, and ultimately to Egypt. She is the first woman executed by federal authorities, and the last until 1953.
July 21 – Wild Bill Hickok – Davis Tutt shootout: In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots Little Dave Tutt dead over a poker debt in what is regarded as the first true western "fast draw" showdown.
July 30 – The paddle steamer Brother Jonathan sinks off the California coast, killing 225.
September 26 – Champ Ferguson becomes the first of two combatants to be convicted of war crimes for actions taken during the American Civil War, found guilty by a U.S. Army tribunal on 23 charges arising from the murder of 53 people as a Confederate guerilla. He is hanged on October 20, two days after the conviction of Henry Wirz.[1]
October–December[]
July 30: Brother Jonathan sinks
September 8– 21: Fort Smith Council between U. S. and Native American tribes that had supported the Confederated States of America regarding Reconstruction Treaties.
October 8 – The 6.3 MlaSanta Cruz Mountains earthquake shakes the Central Coast and San Francisco Bay Area of California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), causing $500,000 in damage.
October 25 – The paddlewheel steamer SS Republic sinks off the Georgia coast, with a cargo of $400,000 in coins.
November 6 – American Civil War: Surrender to the British at Liverpool of the commerce raider CSS Shenandoah (Captain James Waddell), the last significant organized Confederate unit.
November 10 – Captain Henry Wirz, Confederate superintendent of Andersonville Prison (Camp Sumter) is hanged, becoming the second of two combatants, and only serving regular soldier, to be executed for war crimes committed during the American Civil War.
November 18 – Mark Twain's story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is published in the New York weekly The Saturday Press in its original version as "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog".
December 11 – The U.S. Congress creates the House Appropriations Committee and the Committee on Banking and Commerce, reducing the tasks of the Committee on Ways and Means.
December 18 – The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime) is declared ratified by three-quarters of the states of the United States.
December 21 – The Kappa Alpha Order, a social fraternity, is founded at Washington and Lee University.
December 24 – The Ku Klux Klan is formed by six Confederate Army veterans, with support of the Democratic Party, in Pulaski, Tennessee, to resist Reconstruction and intimidate "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags", as well as to repress the freed slaves.
Undated[]
A forest fire near Silverton, Oregon destroys about one million acres (4,000 km2) of timber.
Ongoing[]
American Civil War (1861–1865)
Reconstruction era (1865–1877)
Births[]
January 5 – Johnson N. Camden Jr., U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1914 to 1915 (died 1942)
January 10 – Mary Ingalls, blind older sister of author Laura Ingalls Wilder (died 1928)