Year 1862 was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).
Events of 1862
January - March
April - June
July - September
- July 1
- July 2 - U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the Morrill Land Grant Act into law, creating land-grant colleges to teach agricultural and mechanical sciences across the United States.
- July 4 - Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll) extemporises the story that becomes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland for 10-year-old Alice Liddell and her sisters on a rowing boat trip on The Isis from Oxford to Godstow.
- July 16 - American Civil War: David G. Farragut becomes the first United States Navy rear admiral.
- July 19 - American Civil War: Morgan's Raid - At Buffington Island in Ohio, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan's raid into the north is mostly thwarted when a large group of his men are captured while trying to escape across the Ohio River.
- July 23 - American Civil War: Henry W. Halleck takes command of the Union Army.
- August 2 - American Civil War: Skirmish at Taberville, MO -Union forces force Confederate troops to march south, near Taberville, Missouri.
- 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 CSS Arkansas is scuttled on the Mississippi River after suffering damage in a battle with the USS Essex near Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
- August 9 - American Civil War: Battle of Cedar Mountain - At Cedar Mountain, Virginia, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson narrowly defeats Union forces under General John Pope.
- August 14 - 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 - Indian Wars: Lakota (Sioux) uprising begins in Minnesota as Lakota Sioux attack white settlements along the Minnesota River. They will be overwhelmed by the US military six weeks later.
- August 19 - Indian Wars: 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.
- August 21 - The Vienna Stadtpark opens its gates.
- August 28-August 30 - American Civil War: Second Battle of Bull Run
- 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.
- September 17 - American Civil War:
- 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
- September 29 - Bismarck's "Blood and Iron" speech
October - December
Undated
Ongoing Events
Births
- January 15 - Loie Fuller, American dancer (d. 1928)
- January 23 - David Hilbert, German mathematician (d. 1943)
- January 24 - Edith Wharton, American writer (d. 1937)
- January 29 - Frederick Delius, English composer (d. 1934)
- February 4 - George Ernest Morrison, Australian adventurer and journalist (d. 1920)
- February 7 - Bernard Ralph Maybeck, American architect (d. 1957)
- March 4 - Jacob Robert Emden, Swiss astrophysicist and meteorologist (d. 1940)
- March 8 - George Frederick Phillips, Canadian-born military hero (d. 1904)
- March 13 - Jane Delano, American founder of the American Red Cross Nursing Service (d. 1919)
- March 17 - Silvio Gesell, economist (d. 1930)
- March 25 - William E. Johnson, American leader of Anti-Saloon League (d. 1950)
- March 28 - Aristide Briand, French politician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1932)
- March 29 - Adolfo Müller-Ury, artist (d. 1947)
- April 2 - Nicholas M. Butler, American president of Columbia University, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1947)
- April 6 - Georges Darien, French writer (d. 1921)
- April 11 - Charles Evans Hughes, American jurist and statesman (d. 1948)
- April 26 - Edmund Charles Tarbell, American artist (d. 1938)
- May 15 - Arthur Schnitzler, Austrian dramatist and narrator (d. 1931)
- May 27 - John Kendrick Bangs, American author and satirist (d. 1922)
- June 5 - Allvar Gullstrand, Swedish ophthalmologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1930)
- June 7 - Philipp Lenard, Austrian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1947)
- June 21 - Damrong Rajanubhab, Thai prince and historian (d. 1943)
- June 27 - May Irwin, Canadian actress and singer (d. 1938)
- July 2 - William Henry Bragg, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1942)
- July 14 - Gustav Klimt, Austrian artist (d. 1918)
- July 16 - Ida B. Wells, American journalist, suffragist, and anti-lynching crusader (d. 1931)
- August 5 - Joseph Carey Merrick, English oddity (d. 1890)
- August 21 - Emilio Salgari, Italian writer (d. 1911)
- August 22 - Claude Debussy, French composer (d. 1918)
- August 26 - Herbert Booth, the third son of William and Catherine Booth (d. 1926)
- August 29
- September 11 - O. Henry, American writer (d. 1910)
- September 25 - Billy Hughes, seventh Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1952)
- October 3 - Johnny Briggs, English cricketer (d. 1902)
- October 19 - Auguste Lumière, French inventor (d. 1954)
- October 26 - Thomas J. Preston, Jr., Professor of Archeology at Princeton University (d. 1955); he married Frances Cleveland, widow of President Grover Cleveland.
- November 3 - Henry George, Jr., American politician (d. 1916)
- November 14 - George Washington Vanderbilt II, American businessman (d. 1914)
- November 15 - Gerhart Hauptmann, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1946)
- November 16 - Charles Turner, Australian cricketer (d. 1944)
- November 19 - Billy Sunday, American baseball player, evangelist, prohibitionist (d. 1935)
- December 8 - Georges Feydeau, French playwright (d. 1921)
Deaths
- January 10 - Samuel Colt, American firearms inventor (b. 1814)z
- January 18 - John Tyler, 10th President of the United States (b. 1790)
- February 7 - Prosper Meniere, French scientist (b. 1799)
- February 20
- February 24 - Bernhard Severin Ingemann, Danish novelist and poet (b. 1789)
- March 22 - Manuel Robles Pezuela, former President of Mexico (b. 1817) (executed)
- April 10 - W.H.L. Wallace, American Civil War general (b. 1821)
- April 19 - Louis P. Harvey, Governor of Wisconsin (b. 1820)
- May 6 - Henry David Thoreau, American author and philosopher (b. 1817)
- July 24 - Martin Van Buren, eighth President of the United States (b. 1782)
- August 10 - Shusaku Honinbo, Japanese Go player (b. 1829)
- August 18 - Simon Fraser, Canadian explorer (b. 1776)
- August 20 - Javiera Carrera, Chilean independence fighter (b. 1771)
- September 6 - John Bird Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1780)
- September 14 - Charles Lennox Richardson, Englishman murdered in Japan (b. 1834)
- October 15 - Hans Daniel Ludwig Friedrich Hassenpflug, German statesman (b. 1794)
- November 13 - Ludwig Uhland, German poet (b. 1787)
- December 18 - Barbara Fritchie, U.S. patriot in Civil War (b. 1766)
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