1856 in the United States
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1856 in the United States included some significant events that pushed the nation closer towards civil war.
Incumbents
Federal government
- President: Franklin Pierce (D-New Hampshire)
- Vice President: vacant
- Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
- Speaker of the House of Representatives: Nathaniel P. Banks (American-Massachusetts)
- Congress: 34th
State governments
Events
JanuaryâMarch
- January 24 â U.S. President Franklin Pierce declares the new Free-State Topeka government in Bleeding Kansas to be in rebellion.
- January 26 â Puget Sound War/Yakima War: Battle of Seattle â Marines from the USS Decatur drive off American Indian attackers after an all day battle with settlers.
- February â The Tintic War breaks out in Utah.
- February 1 â Auburn University is first chartered as the East Alabama Male College.
- February 2 â Dallas, Texas is incorporated as a city.
- February 12 â American clipper ships Driver and Ocean Queen leave Liverpool and London respectively; both will be lost without trace in the Atlantic, perhaps due to ice, killing 374 and 123 respectively.[1]
- February 18 â The American Party (Know-Nothings) convene in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to nominate their first presidential candidate, former President Millard Fillmore.
- March 6 â Maryland Agricultural College (present-day University of Maryland, College Park) is chartered.
- March 9 â National Fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon is founded at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
- April 10 â The Theta Chi fraternity is founded at Norwich University.
AprilâJune
- May 16 â The Vigilance Committee is founded in San Francisco, California. It lynches two gangsters, arrests most Democratic Party officials and disbands itself on August 18.
- May 21 â Bleeding Kansas: Lawrence, Kansas is captured and burned by pro-slavery forces (the "Sacking of Lawrence").
- May 22 â Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beats Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane in the hall of the United States Senate, for a speech Sumner had made attacking Southerners who sympathized with the pro-slavery violence in Kansas ("Bleeding Kansas"). Sumner is unable to return to duty for 3 years while he recovers; Brooks becomes a hero across the South.
- May 24 â Pottawatomie Massacre: A group of followers of radical abolitionist John Brown kill 5 pro-slavery supporters in Franklin County, Kansas.
- June 2 â Bleeding Kansas: Battle of Black Jack â Anti-slavery forces, led by John Brown, defeat pro-slavery forces.
- June 6 â At the Democratic National Convention, President Franklin Pierce is denied re-nomination for the November presidential election.
- June 9 â 500 Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa and head west for Salt Lake City, Utah, carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts.
JulyâSeptember
- July 17 â The Great Train Wreck of 1856: Two trains collide near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania killing at least 59 and injuring at least 100.
- August 10 â 1856 Last Island hurricane: A hurricane destroys Last Island, Louisiana, leaving at least 200 dead. The whole island is broken up into smaller islands by the storm.
- August 21 â The Charter Oak in Hartford, Connecticut, falls to the ground during a storm
- August 23 â Kate Warne, the first female private detective, begins to work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency.
- August 30
- Bleeding Kansas: Battle of Osawatomie â Pro-slavery forces defeat anti-slavery forces.
- Chickasaw Constitution signed; establishes new Chickasaw Nation in Indian Territory.
- September 1 â Seton Hall University is founded by Archdiocese of Newark Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley, a cousin of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and nephew of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton.
OctoberâDecember
- November 4 â U.S. presidential election, 1856: Democrat James Buchanan defeats former President Millard Fillmore, representing a coalition of "Know-Nothings" and Whigs, and John C. Frémont of the fledgling Republican Party, to become the 15th president of the United States.
- November 17 â American Old West: On the Sonoita River in present-day southern Arizona, the United States Army establishes Fort Buchanan in order to help control new land acquired in the Gadsden Purchase.
- November 21 â Niagara University is founded in Niagara Falls, New York.
Ongoing
- Bleeding Kansas (1854â1860)
- Third Seminole War (1855â1858)
Births
- January 7 â Charles Harold Davis, landscape painter (died 1933)
- January 8 â Elizabeth Taylor, painter and traveler (died 1932)
- January 9 â Lizette Woodworth Reese, poet (died 1935)[2]
- January 12 â John Singer Sargent, painter (born in Tuscany; died 1925 in the United Kingdom)
- February 2 â Frederick William Vanderbilt, railroad magnate (died 1938)
- March 20 â Frederick Winslow Taylor, inventor and efficiency expert (died 1915)
- April 5 â Booker T. Washington, educator (died 1915)
- April 23 â Granville T. Woods, African American inventor (died 1910)
- March 8 â Colin Campbell Cooper, impressionist painter (died 1937)
- May 6 â Robert Peary, Arctic explorer (died 1920)
- May 15 â L. Frank Baum, children's writer (The Wizard of Oz) (died 1919)[3]
- May 26 â George Templeton Strong, composer (died 1948 in Switzerland)
- July 9/10 â Nikola Tesla inventor, genius (died in 1947 in New York, United States)
- July 11 â Georgiana Drew, stage actress (died 1893)
- July 24 â Franklin Ware Mann, inventor (died 1916)
- July 25 â Charles Major, novelist and lawyer (died 1913)
- August 15 â Charles E. Townsend, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1911 to 1923 (died 1924)
- September 3 âLouis Sullivan, architect, "father of skyscrapers" (died 1924)
- September 5
- William B. McKinley, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1921 to 1926 (died 1926)
- Thomas E. Watson, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1921 to 1922 (died 1922)
- September 9 â Richard R. Kenney, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1897 to 1901 (died 1931)
- October 7 â Moses Fleetwood Walker, baseball pitcher and Black nationalist (died 1924)
- October 10 â George McClellan, U.S. Representative from New York (died 1927)
- October 28 â Anna Elizabeth Klumpke, portrait and genre painter (died 1942)
- October 30 â Charles Leroux, balloonist and parachutist (died 1889)
- November 6 â Jefferson David Chalfant, trompe-l'Åil painter (died 1931)
- November 13 â Louis Brandeis, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (died 1941)
- November 14 â Madeleine Lemoyne Ellicott, suffragette (died 1945)
- November 16 â Carrie Babcock Sherman, wife of James S. Sherman, Second Lady of the United States (died 1931)
- November 17 â Thomas Taggart, U.S. Senator from Indiana in 1916 (died 1929)
- November 21 â William Emerson Ritter, biologist (died 1944)
- November 22 â Heber J. Grant, seventh president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (died 1945)
- December 22 â Frank B. Kellogg, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1917 to 1923 (died 1937)
- December 23 â James Buchanan Duke, tobacco and electric power industrialist (born 1925)
- December 28
- Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921 (died 1924)
- Sarah Platt-Decker, née Chase, suffragist (died 1912)
Deaths
- January 1 â John M. Berrien, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1841 to 1852 (born 1781)
- January 16 âThaddeus William Harris, naturalist (born 1795)
- April 19 â Thomas Rogers, railroad locomotive builder (born 1792)
- April 20 â Robert L. Stevens, president of Camden and Amboy Railroad (born 1787)
- April 26 â George Troup, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1816 to 1818 and 1829 to 1833 (born 1780)
- May 5 â William Crosby Dawson, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1849 to 1855 (born 1798)
- May 31 â John Milton Niles, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1835 to 1839 and 1843 to 1849 (born 1787)
- July 9
- Alfred Cuthbert, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1835 to 1843 (born 1785)
- James Strang, Mormon splinter group leader (born 1813)
- September 7 â Almon W. Babbitt, Mormon pioneer and first secretary/treasurer of Utah Territory (born 1812)
- October 19 â William Sprague III, politician from Rhode Island (born 1799)
- November 9 â John M. Clayton, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1829 to 1836, 1845 to 1849 and 1853 to 1856 (born 1796)
