1861 in the United States

Events from the year 1861 in the United States. This year marked the beginning of the American Civil War.

Incumbents

Federal government">Federal government of the United States">Federal government

President:
[Vice President of the United States|President of the United States|Vice President]:
Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney
Speaker of the House of Representatives:
Congress: 36th, 37th

Events

January–March

January 3 - American Civil War: Delaware votes not to secede from the Union.
January 9 - Mississippi becomes the second state to secede from the Union, preceding the American Civil War.
January 10 - American Civil War: Florida secedes from the Union.
January 11 - American Civil War: Alabama secedes from the Union.
January 12 - Major Robert Anderson sends dispatches to Washington.
January 12 - American Civil War: Florida state troops demand surrender of Fort Pickens.
January 18 - American Civil War: Georgia secedes from the Union.
January 21 - American Civil War: Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate. Ordinance of Secession is ratified.
January 26 - American Civil War: Louisiana secedes from the Union.
January 29 - Kansas is admitted as the 34th U.S. state.
February 1 - American Civil War: Texas secedes from the Union.
February 4 - American Civil War: Delegates from six seceded states meet at the Montgomery Convention in Montgomery, Alabama.
February 8 - American Civil War: The Confederate States of America adopts the Confederate States.
February 9 - American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected the provisional president of the Confederate States of America by the Weed Convention at Montgomery, Alabama.
February 11 - American Civil War: The U.S. House unanimously passes a resolution guaranteeing non-interference with slavery in any state.
February 18 - American Civil War: In Montgomery, Alabama, Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the provisional president of the Confederate States of America.
February 23 - President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, D.C., after an assassination attempt in Baltimore.
February 28 - Colorado Territory is organized.
March 2 - Nevada Territory and Dakota Territory are organized.
March 4
*Abraham Lincoln is sworn in as the 16th president of the United States, and Hannibal Hamlin is sworn in as the 15th vice president.
*American Civil War: The Stars and Bars is adopted as the flag of the Confederate States of America.
March 11 - American Civil War: The Constitution of the Confederate States is adopted.

April–June

April 12 - Battle of Fort Sumter: The American Civil War begins at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.
April 14 - Battle of Fort Sumter: Fort Sumter surrenders to Confederate forces.
April 17 - The state of Virginia secedes from the Union.
April 20 - American Civil War: Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army in order to command the forces of the state of Virginia.
April 25 - American Civil War: The Union Army arrives in Washington, D.C.
April 27 - American Civil War:
*President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus in Maryland.
May 6 - American Civil War: Arkansas secedes from the Union.
May 7 - American Civil War: Tennessee secedes from the Union.
May 8 - American Civil War: Richmond, Virginia, is named the capital of the Confederate States of America.
May 10 - American Civil War - Camp Jackson Affair: Union military forces clash with civilians on the streets of St. Louis, Missouri, resulting in the deaths of at least 28 people and injuries to another 100.
May 13 - American Civil War: Queen Victoria issues a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognizes the breakaway states as having belligerent rights.
May 20
*American Civil War: Kentucky proclaims its neutrality which lasts until September 3, when Confederate forces enter the state.
*American Civil War: North Carolina secedes from the Union.

July–September

July 13 - American Civil War: The Battle of Corrick's Ford takes place in western Virginia.
July 21 - American Civil War - First Battle of Bull Run aka First Manassas: at Manassas Junction, Virginia, the first major battle of the war ends in a Confederate victory.
July 22 - American Civil War: After Union forces led by Nathaniel Lyon capture the Missouri state capital of Jefferson City, the Missouri Constitutional Convention reconvenes and removes pro-secessionist Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson from office, replacing him with a pro-Union governor.
July 25 - American Civil War: The Crittenden–Johnson Resolution is passed by the U.S. Congress, stating that the war is being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.
July 26 - American Civil War: George B. McClellan assumes command of the Army of the Potomac following a disastrous Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run.
August 5
*American Civil War: In order to help pay for the war effort, the United States government issues the first income tax as part of the Revenue Act of 1861.
*The U.S. Army abolishes flogging.
*John Gill Shorter is elected the 17th governor of Alabama defeating Thomas H. Watts.
August 10 - American Civil War: The first major battle west of the Mississippi River, the Battle of Wilson's Creek, is fought, with a Confederate victory.
September 3 - American Civil War: Confederate General Leonidas Polk invades neutral Kentucky, prompting the state legislature to ask for Union assistance.
September 6 - American Civil War: Forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant bloodlessly capture Paducah, Kentucky, which gives the Union control the mouth of the Tennessee River.

October–December

October 9 - American Civil War - Battle of Santa Rosa Island: Confederate forces are defeated in their effort to take the island.
October 21 - American Civil War - Battle of Ball's Bluff: Union forces under Colonel Edward Baker are defeated by Confederate troops in the second major battle of the war. Baker, a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, is killed in the fighting.
October 28 - A small pro-secessionist section of the Missouri legislature takes up a bill for Missouri's secession from the Union.
October 30 - The bill is passed for Missouri's secession from the Union.
October 31
*Missouri's secession from the Union bill is signed by Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson, but by this date Governor Jackson only controls parts of South-Western Missouri. Union forces led by general John C. Frémont have consolidated control over the vast majority of Missouri.
*American Civil War: Citing failing health, Union General Winfield Scott resigns as Commander of the United States Army.
November 1 - American Civil War: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln appoints George B. McClellan as commander of the Union Army, replacing the aged General Winfield Scott.
November 2 - American Civil War: Western Department Union General John C. Frémont is relieved of command and replaced by David Hunter.
November 6 - American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America.
November 7 - American Civil War - Battle of Belmont: In Mississippi County, Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant overrun a Confederate camp but are forced to retreat when Confederate reinforcements arrive.
November 8 - American Civil War - Trent Affair: The stops the United Kingdom mail ship Trent and arrests two Confederate envoys, James Mason and John Slidell, sparking a diplomatic crisis between the U.K. and U.S.
November 21 - American Civil War: Confederate President Jefferson Davis appoints Judah Benjamin Secretary of War.
November 28 - American Civil War: Acting on the ordinance passed by the Jackson government, the Confederate Congress admits Missouri as the 12th Confederate state.
December 2 - John Gill Shorter is sworn in as the 17th governor of Alabama replacing Andrew B. Moore.
December 10 - American Civil War: Kentucky is accepted into the Confederate States of America.

Ongoing

Secession crisis
American Civil War

Undated

Alonzo E. Deitz founds the A. E. Deitz lock company in Brooklyn, New York.

Births

January 7 - Louise Imogen Guiney, poet
January 12 - James Mark Baldwin, philosopher and psychologist
January 26 - Frank O. Lowden, 25th Governor of Illinois from 1917 and U.S. Representative from Illinois from 1906 to 1911
January 29 - William M. Butler, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts from 1892 to 1895
January - Elmer Halsey, Member of the Washington House of Representatives from 1909 to 1919 and from 1923 to 1927
February 15 - Martin Burns, wrestler and coach
February 26 - Godfrey Lowell Cabot, industrialist and philanthropist
March 1 - Henry Harland, novelist and editor
March 15 - Joseph M. Devine, 6th Governor of North Dakota from 1898 to 1899
March 20 - Wilds P. Richardson, U.S. Army officer
April 17 - Willard Saulsbury Jr., U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1913 to 1919
April 19 - John Grier Hibben, minister, philosopher and educator
April 20 - James D. Phelan, U.S. Senator from California from 1915 to 1921
April 23 - John Peltz, baseball player
April 27 - William Lorimer, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1909 to 1912
May 16 - Herman Webster Mudgett, alias H. H. Holmes, serial killer
May 20 - Henry Gantt, project engineer
May 25 - Julia Boynton Green, poet
June 2 - Helen Herron Taft, First Lady of the U.S. as wife of the 27th president, William Howard Taft
June 6 - Joseph M. Terrell, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1910 to 1911
June 29 - William James Mayo, physician, medic, co-founder of Mayo Clinic
July 7 - Nettie Stevens, geneticist
July 9 - James M. Beck, politician
July 11 - George W. Norris, U.S. Senator from Nebraska from 1913 till 1943
July 22
* Joseph L. Bristow, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1909 to 1915
* James Speyer, banker
July 26 - James K. Vardaman, politician
August 3 - Samuel M. Shortridge, U.S. Senator from California from 1921 till 1933
August 4 - Jesse W. Reno, inventor, builder of the first working escalator
August 6 - Edith Roosevelt, née Carow, First Lady of the U.S.
August 9
* L. B. Hanna, 11th Governor of North Dakota from 1913 till 1917
* Dorothea Klumpke, astronomer
August 20 - Anna Shelton, businesswoman
September 5 - Charles Hodgdon, Member of the Washington House of Representatives from 1917 to 1919
September 20 - Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress
September 21 - L. Heisler Ball, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1919 to 1925
September 30 - William Wrigley Jr., chewing gum industrialist
October 4 - Frederic Remington, painter, illustrator, sculptor and writer
October 19 - William J. Burns, detective and director of Bureau of Investigation
November 2 - Charles W. Waterman, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1927 to 1932
November 6
* Thomas Watt Gregory, U.S. Attorney General
* James Naismith, Canadian-born inventor of basketball
November 10 - Bessie Alexander Ficklen, doggerel poet and hand puppet specialist
November 11 - Frank R. Baker, Member of the Washington House of Representatives from 1893 to 1899
November 14 - Frederick Jackson Turner, historian
November 26 - Albert B. Fall, U.S. Senator from New Mexico from 1912 to 1921 and Secretary of the Interior from 1921 to 1923 under President Warren G. Harding
December 8 - William C. Durant, businessman
December 15 - Charles Duryea, engineer and manufacturer of motor vehicles
December 30 - Charles Hanford Henderson, educator and author

Deaths

April 4 - John McLean, U.S. Postmaster General from 1823 to 1829, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1829 to 1861
April 8 - Elisha Otis, industrialist, founder of the Otis Elevator Company
April 15 - Isaiah Stillman, U.S. Army Major in the Black Hawk War
May 21 - Benjamin Paul Akers, sculptor
May 24 - Elmer E. Ellsworth, first Union officer to die in the Civil War
June 3 - Stephen A. Douglas, Senator from Illinois from 1847 till 1861 and presidential candidate
June 5 - John Garland, Bvt. Brigadier General in the Union Army
June 13 - Richard Lawrence, failed assassin of Andrew Jackson
July 7 - John Willis Ellis, 35th Governor of North Carolina from 1859 to 1861
July 13 - Robert S. Garnett, Confederate brigadier general
July 22 - Barnard Elliott Bee Jr., Confederate general
August 10 - Nathaniel Lyon, Union Army brigadier general, first general to be killed in the Civil War
August 12 - Eliphalet Remington, gunmaker
August 17 - Alcée Louis la Branche, politician
October 5 - Kinsley S. Bingham, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1859 to 1861
October 20 - William Woodbridge, Governor of Michigan from 1840 to 1841 and U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1841 to 1847
October 21 - Edward Dickinson Baker, U.S. Senator from Oregon from 1860 to 1861
October 26 - Edward "Ned" Kendall, bandleader and instrumentalist
November 28 - Richard M. Young, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1837 to 1843