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Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Davis (June 3, 1808 – December 6, 1889) was an American soldier and politician. Davis is most famous for serving as the first and only President of the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War (also known as the War Between the States). Before the Civil War he served in the legislature of Mississippi, both houses of the U.S. Congress and fought in the Mexican War as colonel of a volunteer regiment. Later he became Secretary of War in the cabinet of President Franklin Pierce.
Early life and military career
Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808 on a farm in Christian County, Kentucky, near the border with Todd County (see Jefferson Davis State Historic Site). Davis, the last of the ten children of Samuel Emory Davis and his wife, Jane, had come from a family of rich American history. The younger Davis's grandfather had immigrated to the United States from Wales and had once lived in Virginia and Maryland, working as a public servant. His father, along with his uncles, had served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, his father serving with the Georgia cavalry and leading in the battle of Savannah as an infantry officer. His older brothers also served. During the War of 1812, three of Davis's brothers fought the British, two of them serving under Andrew Jackson and receiving his commendation for bravery in the Battle of New Orleans.
During Davis's youth, his family moved several times, in 1811 to St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, and in 1812 to Wilkinson County, Mississippi.
In 1813, Davis began his education together with his sister Mary, attending a log cabin school a mile from their home. Two years later, Davis entered the Catholic school of Saint Thomas Aquinas at St. Rose Priory a school operated by the Dominican Order in Washington County, Kentucky. At the time he was the only Protestant who was a student at that school. He went on to Jefferson College at Washington, Mississippi in 1818, and to Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky in 1821. In 1824, Davis entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York as a cadet.
Jefferson Davis successfully completed his four-year term of study at West Point, and graduated as a Second Lieutenant in June 1828. He was assigned to the 1st Infantry and stationed at Fort Crawford. His first assignment, in 1829, was to supervise the cutting of timber on the banks of the Red Cedar River for the repair and enlargement of the fort. Later the same year, he was reassigned to Fort Winnebago, Wisconsin. While supervising the construction and management of a sawmill in the Yellow River in 1831, he contracted pneumonia, causing him to return to Fort Crawford.
The next year, Davis was dispatched to Galena, Illinois at the head of a detachment assigned to remove miners from lands claimed by Native Americans. His first combat assignment was during the Black Hawk War of the same year, after which he was assigned by his colonel, Zachary Taylor, to escort Black Hawk himself to prison at Jefferson Barracks—it is said that the chief liked Davis because of the kind treatment he had shown. Another of Davis's duties during this time was to keep miners from illegally entering what would eventually become the state of Iowa.
In 1833, Davis was promoted to First Lieutenant of the U.S. Regiment of Dragoons and made a regimental adjutant. 1834 saw his transfer to Fort Gibson.
Jefferson Davis had fallen in love with Colonel Taylor's 16-year-old daughter, Sarah Knox Taylor. Her father did not approve of the match, so Davis resigned his commission and married Miss Taylor at the house of her aunt near Louisville, Kentucky.
Louisville, Kentucky
Marriage, plantation life and politics
The marriage proved short. The newlyweds both contracted malaria, and Davis's wife died three months after the wedding at the Louisiana home of his sister. Davis recovered, sailing for Havana, Cuba, and then to New York City. In 1836, he retired to Brierfield Plantation in Warren County, Mississippi.
The subsequent years proved uneventful, as Davis supervised the production of cotton at Brierfield, and studied political science. He decided to put his studies to use in 1843, by entering a career in politics. He ran for the Mississippi House of Representatives as a Democrat, and engaged in a debate with his opponent, Seargent Smith Prentiss, on election day. However, Davis's efforts proved unsuccessful, and he lost the election. The next year, he traveled around Mississippi campaigning for James K. Polk and George M. Dallas in the presidential election of 1844.
1844 saw Jefferson Davis's first political success, as he was elected to the United States House of Representatives, taking office on March 4 of the following year.
He married again on February 26 1845, this time to socially prominent Varina Howell.
Second military career
Varina Howell
1846 saw the beginning of the Mexican-American War. Davis must have looked favorably upon the war, seeing that the United States stood to acquire a considerable amount of land south of the Missouri Compromise line. He resigned his House seat in June, and raised a volunteer regiment, the Mississippi Rifles, becoming its colonel. On July 21 they sailed from New Orleans for the Texas coast.
In September of the same year, he participated in the successful siege of Monterrey, Mexico. He fought bravely at the Buena Vista, Mexico on February 22 1847, and was shot in the foot. In recognition of his bravery and initiative, commanding general Zachary Taylor is reputed to have said, "My daughter, sir, was a better judge of men than I was."
President James K. Polk offered him a federal commission as a Brigadier General and command of a brigade of militia. He declined the appointment, arguing that the United States Constitution gives the power of appointing militia officers to the states, and not to the federal government.
Because of his war service, the governor of Mississippi appointed Davis to fill out the Senate term of the late Jesse Speight. In addition, the Smithsonian Institution appointed him a regent in the end of December 1847.
Return to politics
The Senate made Davis chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. When his term expired, he was elected to the same seat (by the Mississippi legislature, as the Constitution mandated at the time). He hadn't served a year when he resigned (in September 1851) to run for the governorship of Mississippi on the issue of the Compromise of 1850, which Davis opposed. This election bid was unsuccessful, as he was defeated by Henry Stuart Foote by 999 votes.
Left without political office, Davis continued his political activity. He took part in a convention on states' rights, held at Jackson, Mississippi in January 1852. In the weeks leading up to the U.S. presidential election, 1852, he campaigned in a number of Southern states for Democratic candidates Franklin Pierce and William R. King.
Pierce won the election and made Davis his Secretary of War. In this capacity, Davis gave to Congress four annual reports (in December of each year), as well as an elaborate one (submitted in February 22 1855) on various routes for the proposed Transcontinental Railroad. The Pierce administration expired in 1857. The president lost the Democratic nomination, which went instead to James Buchanan. Davis's term was to end with Pierce's, so he ran successfully for the Senate, and re-entered it on March 4, 1857.
His renewed service in the Senate was interrupted by an illness that threatened him with the loss of his left eye. Still nominally serving in the Senate, Davis spent the summer of 1858 in Portland, Maine. On the Fourth of July, he delivered an anti-secessionist speech on board a ship near Boston. He again urged the preservation of the Union on October 11 in Faneuil Hall, Boston, and returned to the Senate soon after.
On February 2, 1860, as secessionist clamor in the South grew ever louder, Davis submitted six resolutions in an attempt to consolidate opinion regarding states' rights, and to further his own position on the issue. Abraham Lincoln, a known opponent of slavery, won the presidency that November. Matters came to a head, and South Carolina seceded from the Union.
Though an opponent of secession in principle, Davis upheld it in practice on January 10, 1861. On the 21st of that month, he announced the secession of Mississippi, delivered a farewell address, and resigned from the Senate.
Leadership of the Confederacy
Four days after his resignation, Davis was commissioned a Major General of Mississippi troops. On February 9, 1861, a constitutional convention at Montgomery, Alabama named him provisional president of the Confederate States of America and he was inaugurated on February 18. In meetings of his own Mississippi legislature, Davis had argued against secession; but when a majority of the delegates opposed him, he gave in.
He immediately appointed a Peace Commission to resolve the Confederacy's differences with the Union (USA). Not wishing, however, to rely on paths of negotiation, he appointed General P.G.T. Beauregard to lead Confederate troops in the vicinity of Charleston, South Carolina. The government moved to Richmond, Virginia in May, 1861, and Davis and his family took up his residence there at the White House of the Confederacy on May 29.
Davis was elected to a six-year term as president of the Confederacy on November 6, 1861. He had never served a full term in any elective office, and this was not destined to be the first. He was inaugurated on February 22, 1862. On June 1, he assigned General Robert E. Lee to command the Army of Northern Virginia, the main Confederate army in the Eastern Theater. That December, he made a tour of Confederate armies in the west of the country.
In August 1863, Davis declined General Lee's offer of resignation after his defeat at the Battle of Gettysburg. As Confederate military fortunes turned for the worse in 1864, he visited Georgia with the intent of raising morale.
Davis has received criticism over his conduct of the military affairs of the Confederacy. Until late in the war, he resisted efforts to appoint a general-in-chief, essentially handling those duties himself; on January 31, 1865, Lee assumed this role, but it was far too late for him to establish a grand strategy that could achieve success. Davis was responsible for the strategy of defending all Southern territory with ostensibly equal effort, which diluted the limited resources of the South and made it vulnerable to coordinated strategic thrusts by the Union into the vital Western Theater. He made other poor strategic choices, such as allowing Lee to invade the North on two occasions while the Western armies were losing battles and critical terrain, such as the Mississippi River. He also has been faulted for poor coordination and management of his generals in the field, notably in his reluctance to relieve his personal friend, the inept Braxton Bragg, defeated in important battles and distrusted by his subordinates; he relieved the cautious but capable Joseph E. Johnston and replaced him with the reckless John Bell Hood, resulting in the loss of Atlanta and the eventual loss of an army.
On April 3, 1865, with Union troops under Ulysses S. Grant poised to capture Richmond, Davis escaped for Danville, Virginia, together with the Confederate cabinet, leaving on the Richmond and Danville Railroad. Six days later, he proceeded to Greensboro, North Carolina. On April 16, he made a break for Meridian, Mississippi, but was captured at Irwinville, Georgia on May 10 with Postmaster General John Henninger Reagan and former Texas governor Francis R. Lubbock.
Cabinet
Imprisonment and retirement
On May 19 1865, he was imprisoned in a casemate at Fortress Monroe, on the coast of Virginia. The casemate was wet, unheated, and open to the weather, leading many to believe that his captors intended him to die in prison. He was placed in irons on the 23rd, but released from irons on the 26th at the recommendation of a physician. Davis was not indicted for treason until a year later (May 1866) due to the constitutional concerns of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase.
While in prison Davis arranged to sell his Mississippi estate to one of his former slaves, Ben Montgomery. Montgomery was a talented business manager, mechanic, and even inventor who had become wealthy in part from running his own general store.
The next year, after imprisonment of two years, he was released on bail which was posted by prominent citizens of both northern and southern states, including Horace Greeley and Cornelius Vanderbilt who had become convinced he was being treated unfairly. He visited Canada, and sailed for New Orleans, Louisiana, via Havana, Cuba. In 1868, he traveled to Europe. That December, the court rejected a motion to nullify the indictment, but the prosecution dropped the case in February of 1869.
That same year, Davis became president of the Carolina Life Insurance Company in Memphis, Tennessee. Upon Robert E. Lee's death in 1870, Davis presided over the memorial meeting in Richmond. Elected to the U.S. Senate again, he refused the office in 1875, having been barred from federal office by law.
In 1876, he promoted a society for the stimulation of U.S. trade with South America. Davis visited England the next year, returning in 1878 to Beauvoir near Biloxi, Mississippi. Over the next three years there, Davis wrote The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. Having completed that book, he visited Europe again, and traveled to Alabama and Georgia the following year.
He completed A Short History of the Confederate States of America in October of 1889. Jefferson Davis died in New Orleans on December 6, 1889, at the age of 81. His funeral was one of the largest ever staged in the south. He is buried at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.
Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution barred from office anyone who had violated their oath to protect the Constitution by serving in the Confederacy. That prohibition included Davis. In 1978, pursuant to authority granted to Congress under the same section of the Amendment, Congress posthumously removed the ban on Davis with a two-thirds vote of each house. These actions were spearheaded by Congressman Trent Lott. Congress had previously taken similar action on behalf of Robert E. Lee.
External links
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- [http://ngeorgia.com/people/davisj.html Biography of Jefferson Davis]
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Davis, Jefferson
President of the Confederate StatesThe President of the Confederate States was the Head of State of the short-lived republic of the Confederate States of America which seceded from the United States.
The only man to hold the office was Jefferson Davis. He was President from February 18, 1861 to May 10, 1865.
Office
According to the Confederate States Constitution, the President's office was almost entirely the same as that of the President of the United States.
The President was to be:
- chosen by an electoral college from each state in the Confederacy. Each state had as many electors as they had members in Congress (senators + representatives).
- elected jointly with a Vice Presidential running mate (but the President and VP could not be citizens of the same state)
- either a born citizen of the Confederacy or a born citizen of the US born prior to December 20, 1860 and resident in the Confederacy for over 14 years.
- at least 35 years old
Powers
The President of the Confederacy held most of the same powers as the US President. Though he could not directly propose legislation, he was given the power to nominate members of the Supreme Court, ambassadors, cabinet members, and other executive officials to be approved by the Senate.
He was also Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate Army and held veto power over legislation.
The President could be impeached by Congress for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."
Differences
There were a few key differences between the proposed Confederate President and the United States President:
- Unlike the United States, which allowed for indefinite re-election (until 1951) of both the President and Vice President after a four-year term, the Confederacy limited both offices to only one, six-year term. After the war, this innovation gained considerable popularity in the re-constituted Union, most notably being endorsed by Rutherford B. Hayes in his inaugural address.
- One unique power granted to the Confederate president was the ability to subject a bill to a line item veto, a power held by some state governors.
Category:Government of the Confederate States
Alexander Stephens
Alexander Hamilton Stephens (February 11, 1812–March 4, 1883) was Vice President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War.
Biography
Stephens was born near Crawfordville, Taliaferro County, Georgia. He grew up poor and acquired his education through the generosity of several benefactors. He graduated at the top of his class from the University of Georgia at Athens in 1832.
Politics
After an unhappy couple of years teaching school, he studied law, passed the bar, and began a successful career as a lawyer in Crawfordville. As his wealth increased, Stephens began acquiring the requisite symbols of power in Southern society: land and slaves. By the time of the Civil War, Stephens owned 34 slaves and several thousand acres. Bitten by the political bug in the early 1830s, Stephens began what became a lifelong career in public service in 1836 when he was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. He served there until moving on to the Georgia Senate in 1842. From there was then elected as a Whig to the United States House of Representatives to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Mark A. Cooper. He was reelected to the Twenty-ninth through Thirty-first Congresses, as a Unionist to the Thirty-second Congress, as a Whig to the Thirty-third Congress and as a Democrat to the Thirty-fourth and Thirty-fifth Congresses, serving October 2, 1843 to March 3, 1859.
As a national lawmaker during the crucial two decades before the Civil War, Stephens was involved in all the major sectional battles. He began as a moderate defender of slavery, but later accepted all of the prevailing Southern rationales used to defend the institution.
Stephens quickly rose to prominence as one of the leading Southern Whigs in the House. He supported the annexation of Texas in 1845. Along with his fellow Whigs, he vehemently opposed the Mexican War. He was an equally vigorous opponent of the Wilmot Proviso, which would have barred the extension of slavery into territories acquired by the United States during the war with Mexico. Stephens along with his friend, fellow Georgia congressman Robert Toombs, worked diligently to secure the election of Zachary Taylor in 1848. Both were chagrined and angered when Taylor proved less than pliable on aspects of the Compromise of 1850. The death of Taylor removed the major barrier to passage of the compromise measures. Stephens and Toombs both supported the Compromise of 1850, and then returned to Georgia to secure support for the measures at home.
By this time, Stephens had departed the ranks of the Whig party--its northern wing proving inimical to what he regarded as non-negotiable Southern interests. Back in Georgia, Stephens, Toombs, and Democratic congressman Howell Cobb formed the Constitutional Union party. The party overwhelmingly carried the state in the ensuing election and for the first time, Stephens returned to Congress no longer a Whig.
Stephens did not run for renomination in 1858. In 1861 he served as a Delegate to the Georgia convention that voted to secede from the United States. He was elected to the Confederate Congress, and was chosen by the Congress as Vice President of the provisional government. He was then elected Vice President of the Confederacy.
On the brink of the Civil War, Stephens gave his famous Cornerstone Speech in Savannah, Georgia on March 21, 1861. In it he reaffirmed that "African Slavery ... was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution". He went on to assert that the US Constitution with its "assumption of the equality of races" was "fundamentally wrong". "Our new [Confederate] government is founded ... upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition", and also: "With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system."
Stephens suffered from illness and disease throughout his life, and weighed only 96 pounds. While his voice was described as shrill and unpleasant, at the beginning of the Civil War, a northern newspaper described him as "The Strongest Man in the South" because of his intelligence, judgment, and eloquence.
On February 3 1865 he served as one of the commissioners representing the Confederacy and met with President Abraham Lincoln on the steamer River Queen, at the Hampton Roads Conference which attempted to reach a peaceful ending to the Civil War.
After the war he was imprisoned in Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, for five months, until October 1865. In 1866 he was elected to the United States Senate by the first legislature convened under the new State constitution, but did not present his credentials, as the State had not been readmitted to the Union. He was elected as a Democrat to the Forty-third Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Ambrose R. Wright, and was reelected to the Forty-fourth and to the three succeeding Congresses, serving from December 1, 1873 until his resignation on November 4, 1882.
1882
1882
Stephens was elected Governor of Georgia in 1882 and served until his death in Atlanta. He was interred in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, then reinterred on his estate, "Liberty Hall," near Crawfordville.
He published A Constitutional View of the War between the States (two volumes, 1868-70) in which he wrote on the South's position in regard to the doctrines of State sovereignty and secession.
See also
- A.H. Stephens Historic Park
Reference
- Harper's Weekly, February 23, 1861 Biography on Stephens
- Thomas E. Schott, Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia: A Biography (1988)
- Rudolf Von Abele, Alexander H. Stephens (1946)
- Cleveland, Alexander H. Stephens in Public and Private, with Letters and Speeches (1866)
- W.P.Trent, Southern Statesmen of the Old Régime (1897)
External links
- [http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=76 "Cornerstone" Speech]
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18611861 is a common year starting on Tuesday.
Events
January
- January 1 - Benito Juárez captures Mexico City
- January 2 - Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia dies and is succeeded by Wilhelm I
- January 3 - American Civil War: Delaware votes not to secede from the United States
- 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 United States
- January 11 - American Civil War: Alabama secedes from the United States
- January 18 - American Civil War: Georgia joins the Confederacy
- January 21 - American Civil War: Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate
- January 26 - American Civil War: Louisiana secedes from the Union.
- January 29 - Kansas is admitted as the 34th U.S. state.
February
- February 1 - American Civil War: Texas secedes from the United States.
- February 4 - American Civil War: In Montgomery, Alabama the Confederate States of America is formed by delegates from six break-away United States.
- February 8 - American Civil War: The Confederate States of America are formed.
- February 9 - American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected the Provisional President of the Confederate States of America by the Confederate convention at Montgomery, Alabama.
- February 11 - American Civil War: US House unanimously passes resolution guaranteeing non-interference with slavery in any state.
- February 13 - Capture of Gaeta, last stronghold of the Neapolitan King Francis II, by Piedmontese forces. Francis goes into exile.
- February 18 - American Civil War: In Montgomery, Alabama Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the provisional president of the Confederate States of America.
- February 18 - Victor Emmanuel of Savoy becomes King of Italy. See: Kingdom of Italy
- February 19 - Serfdom is abolished in Russia.
- February 23 - President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, DC after an assassination attempt in Baltimore, Maryland.
- February 27 - A crowd in Warsaw protesting Russian rule over Poland is fired upon by Russian troops killing five protesters.
- February 28 - Colorado is organized as a United States territory.
March-April
- March 2 - Nevada is organized as a United States territory.
- March 3 - Formal emancipation of the serfs in Imperial Russia
- March 4 - End of term for President of the United States James Buchanan. He is succeeded by Abraham Lincoln.
- March 4 - 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 of America is adopted.
- March 17 - Proclamation of the kingdom of Italy with Victor Emanuel II as its king
- March 19 - First Taranaki War ends in New Zealand
- March 30 - Sir William Crookes announces his discovery of Thallium (see Discovery of the chemical elements)
- April 12 - American Civil War begins at Fort Sumter, South Carolina
- April 27 - American Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus in the United States.
- April 27 - American Civil War: West Virginia secedes from Virginia.
May-June
- 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 13 - American Civil War: Victoria of the United Kingdom issues a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognizes the breakaway states as having belligerent rights.
- May 13 - Comet C/1861 J1 (the "Great Comet of 1861") discovered in Australia.
- May 14 - The Canellas meteorite, an 859 gram chondrite type meteorite struck earth near Barcelona, Spain.
- May 20 - American Civil War: Kentucky proclaims its neutrality which will last until September 3 when Confederate forces enter the state. North Carolina secedes from the United States
- June 8 - American Civil War: Tennessee secedes from the Union.
- June 9 - Lebanon separated from Syrian administration and reunited under Ottoman governor with the approval of European powers
- June 15 - Benito Juárez formally elected president of Mexico; he temporarily stops the payments of foreign debt
- June 25 - Abd-ul-Mejid, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1839-1861) dies and is succeeded by Abd-ul-Aziz (1861-1876).
July-August
- July 1 - First issue of Vatican's newspaper L'Osservatore Romano was published.
- July 2 - Ioan Kasatkin lands on Hakodate and introduces the Eastern Orthodox church into Japan.
- July 21 - American Civil War: First Battle of Bull Run - At Manassas Junction, Virginia, the first major battle of the war begins (Confederate victory).
- 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 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 (3% of all incomes over US $800; rescinded in 1872).
- August 5 - US Army abolishes flogging
- August 27 - Last execution in Britain for attempted murder - Martin Doyle in Chester
September-October
- 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 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 24 - The HMS Warrior, the world's first ocean-going (all) iron-hulled armoured battleship was completed and commisioned.
- October 31 - American Civil War: Citing failing health, Union General Winfield Scott resigns as Commander of the United States Army.
November
- November 1 - American Civil War: US President Abraham Lincoln appoints George McClellan as commander of the Union Army, replacing the aged General Winfield Scott.
- November 2 - American Civil War: Western Department Union General John C. Fremont 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 Belmont, Missouri, 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: The "Trent Affair" - The USS San Jacinto stops the United Kingdom mail ship Trent and arrests two Confederate envoys, James Mason and John Slidell, sparking a diplomatic crisis between the UK and US.
- November 21 - American Civil War: Confederate President Jefferson Davis appoints Judah Benjamin secretary of war.
- November 25 - Tenement collapses in the Old Town of Edinburgh and buries 50 - rescues find 15 of them alive
Unknown dates
- News of Henri Mouhot's discovery of Angkor Wat published.
- In Britain, the death penalty is limited to murder, embezzlement, piracy and to acts of arson perpetrated upon docks or ammunition depots.
- British Empire establishes bases in Lagos to stop the slave trade.
Births
- January 14 - Mehmed VI, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1926)
- January 30 - Charles Martin Loeffler, American composer (d. 1935)
- February 12 - Lou Andreas-Salome, Russian-born author (d. 1937)
- February 15 - Charles Edouard Guillaume, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1938)
- February 26 - King Ferdinand of Bulgaria (d. 1948)
- February 27 - Rudolf Steiner, Austrian philosopher (d. 1925)
- April 8 - Son, Byong-Hi, Korean nationalist (d. 1922)
- April 15 - Bliss Carman, Canadian poet (d. 1929)
- May 7 - Rabindranath Tagore, Indian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1941)
- June 12 - William Attewell, English cricketer (d. 1927)
- June 19 - Doctor Jose Rizal, Philippine national hero (d. 1896)
- June 20, Frederick Hopkins, English biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (d. 1947)
- October 16 - J. B. Bury, British historian (d. 1927)
- October 30 - Antoine Bourdelle, French sculptor (d. 1929)
- December 4 - Lillian Russell, American singer and vaudeville star (d. 1922)
- November 6 - James Naismith, Canadian inventor of basketball (d. 1939)
- December 8 - Georges Méliès, French film director (d. 1938)
- December 15 - Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, Prime Minister and President of Finland (d. 1944)
- December 16 - Antonio de La Gandara, French painter (d. 1917)
- December 10 - Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian explorer, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize d. 1930)
- December 20 - Ivana Kobilca, Slovenian painter (d. 1926)
- William H. Stayton, American founder of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment
Deaths
- January 2 - Friedrich Wilhelm IV, King of Prussia (b. 1795)
- January 17 - Lola Montez, Irish-born Spanish dancer and mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria (b. 1821)
- May 29 - Joachim Lelewel, Polish nationalist historian (b. 1786)
- June 3 - Stephen A. Douglas, U.S. Senator from Illinois and Presidential candidate (b. 1813)
- June 25 - Abd-ul-Mejid, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1823)
- June 29 - Elizabeth Barrett Browning, English poet (b. 1806)
- July 25 - Jonas Furrer, member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1805)
- August 24 - Pierre Berthier, French geologist (b. 1782)
- October 5 - Antoni Melchior Fijałkowski, Polish bishop (b. 1778)
- December 14 - Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, husband of Queen Victoria (b. 1819)
Category:1861
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May 10
May 10 is the 130th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (131st in leap years). There are 235 days remaining.
Events
- 1291 - Scottish nobles recognize the authority of King Edward I of England.
- 1497 - Amerigo Vespucci allegedly leaves Cádiz for his first voyage to the New World.
- 1503 - Christopher Columbus visits the Cayman Islands and names them Las Tortugas after the numerous sea turtles there.
- 1534 - Jacques Cartier visits Newfoundland.
- 1768 - John Wilkes is imprisoned for writing an article for the North Briton severely criticizing King George III. This action provokes rioting in London.
- 1774 - Louis XVI becomes King of France.
- 1775 - American Revolutionary War: Fort Ticonderoga is taken by a small force led by Colonel Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen.
- 1775 - American Revolutionary War: Representatives from the 13 colonies of the United States meet in Philadelphia and raise the Continental Army to defend the new republic. They place it under command of Cavalier George Washington of Virginia.
- 1796 - First Coalition: Napoleon I of France wins a decisive victory against Austrian forces at Lodi bridge over the River Adda in Italy. The Austrians lose some 2,000 men.
- 1801 - First Barbary War: The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declare war on the United States.
- 1837 - Panic of 1837: New York City banks fail, and unemployment reaches record levels.
- 1857 - Indian Mutiny: In India, the Sepoys revolt against the British Army.
- 1865 - American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is captured by Union troops near Irwinville, Georgia.
- 1865 - American Civil War: Union soldiers ambush and mortally wound Confederate raider William Quantrill in Kentucky, who lingers until his death on June 6.
- 1869 - The First Transcontinental Railroad, linking the eastern and western United States, is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah (not Promontory Point, Utah).
- 1872 - Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman nominated for President of the United States.
- 1877 - Romania declares itself independent from Turkey, recognized on March 26, 1881 after the end of the Romanian independence war.
- 1908 - Mother's Day is observed for the first time (Andrew's Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia, USA).
- 1924 - J. Edgar Hoover is appointed the Director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, and remains so until his death in 1972.
- 1933 - Censorship: In Germany, the Nazis stage massive public book burnings.
- 1940 - World War II: The first German bombs of the war fall on England at Chilham and Petham, in Kent.
- 1940 - World War II: Germany invades Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
- 1940 - World War II: Winston Churchill is appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
- 1941 - World War II: The House of Commons in London is destroyed by the Luftwaffe in an air raid.
- 1941 - World War II: Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland in order to try and negotiate a peace deal between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany.
- 1954 - Bill Haley and the Comets release "Rock Around the Clock", the first rock and roll record to reach number one on the charts.
- 1960 - The nuclear submarine USS Triton completes the first underwater circumnavigation of the earth.
- 1969 - The first "Zip to Zap" rural outdoor rock concert at Zap, North Dakota, is ended prematurely as North Dakota National Guard is ordered to disperse the unruly crowd.
- 1979 - The Federated States of Micronesia becomes self-governing.
- 1981 - François Mitterrand takes office as the first Socialist President of France.
- 1988 - Michel Rocard becomes Prime Minister of France.
- 1993 - In Thailand, a fire at the Kader Toy Factory kills 188 workers, mostly young women.
- 1994 - The U.S. state of Illinois executes serial killer John Wayne Gacy for the murder of 33 young men and boys.
- 1994 - An annular eclipse of the sun is visible across much of North America.
- 1996 - A "rogue storm" near the summit of Mount Everest kills eight climbers, making this the deadliest day in the mountain's history. Among the dead are experienced climbers Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, both of whom were leading paid expeditions to the summit.
- 1997 - An earthquake near Ardekul in northeastern Iran kills at least 2,400 people.
- 1998 - National elections are held in Hungary.
- 2001 - In Ghana, a stampede at a football game kills over 120 spectators.
- 2002 - FBI agent Robert Hanssen is given a life sentence without the possibility of parole for selling American secrets to Moscow for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds.
- 2002 - Lynda Lyon Block is executed in Yellow Mama, the electric chair of Alabama.
- 2003 - Record shattering tornado activity during the May 2003 Tornado Outbreaks.
- 2005 - A live hand grenade lands about 100 feet from United States President George W. Bush while he is giving a speech to a crowd in Tbilisi, Georgia, but malfunctions and does not detonate. Vladimir Arutinian later admits throwing the grenade.
Births
- 1265 - Emperor Fushimi of Japan (d. 1317)
- 1604 - Jean Mairet, French dramatist (d. 1686)
- 1641 - Dudley North, English economist (d. 1691)
- 1727 - Anne Robert Turgot, French statesman (d. 1781)
- 1760 - Johann Peter Hebel, German poet (d. 1826)
- 1770 - Louis Nicolas Davout, French marshal (d. 1823)
- 1838 - John Wilkes Booth, American actor and assassin of Abraham Lincoln (d. 1865)
- 1841 - James Gordon Bennett Jr., American publisher (d. 1918)
- 1866 - Léon Bakst, Russian artist (d. 1924)
- 1872 - Marcel Mauss, French sociologist (d. 1950)
- 1878 - Gustav Stresemann, Chancellor of Germany, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1929)
- 1886 - Karl Barth, Swiss Protestant theologian (d. 1968)
- 1886 - Felix Manalo, first Executive Minister of the Iglesia ni Cristo (d. 1963)
- 1888 - Max Steiner, Austrian composer (d. 1971)
- 1889 - Mae Murray, American actress (d. 1965)
- 1890 - Alfred Jodl, German general (d. 1946)
- 1897 - Einar Gerhardsen, Prime minister of Norway (d. 1987)
- 1899 - Fred Astaire, American singer, dancer, and actor (d. 1987)
- 1899 - Dimitri Tiomkin, Ukrainian-born composer (d. 1979)
- 1902 - Anatole Litvak, Ukrainian-born film director (d. 1974)
- 1902 - David O. Selznick, American film producer (d. 1965)
- 1909 - Maybelle Carter, American musician
- 1916 - Milton Babbitt, American composer
- 1927 - Nayantara Sahgal, Indian author
- 1928 - Arnold Rüütel, Estonian president
- 1930 - Pat Summerall, American football player and broadcaster
- 1933 - Barbara Taylor Bradford, English writer
- 1934 - Cliff Wilson, Welsh snooker player (d. 1994)
- 1936 - Gary Owens, American actor and announcer
- 1944 - Jim Abrahams, American film director
- 1946 - Donovan, Scottish musician
- 1946 - Dave Mason, English musician (Traffic)
- 1953 - John Diamond, British journalist (d. 2001)
- 1955 - Chris Berman, American sportscaster
- 1955 - Mark David Chapman, American assassin of John Lennon
- 1955 - Ashoka Jahnavi-Prasad, scientist
- 1956 - Vladislav Listyev, Russian television anchor and journalist
- 1957 - Sid Vicious, English bassist (The Sex Pistols) (d. 1979)
- 1958 - Rick Santorum, U.S. Senator
- 1960 - Bono, Irish singer ( U2)
- 1965 - Linda Evangelista, Canadian model
- 1966 - Jonathan Edwards, British athlete
- 1969 - Dennis Bergkamp, Dutch footballer
- 1970 - David Weir, Scottish footballer
- 1971 - Ådne Søndrål, Norwegian speed skater
- 1972 - Radosław Majdan, Polish footballer
- 1975 - Hélio Castroneves, Brazilian race car driver
- 1977 - Nick Heidfeld, German Formula 1 driver
- 1980 - Jørgen Scharling Rasmussen, Danish singer and cartoonist
Deaths
- 1290 - Duke Rudolph II of Austria (b. 1271)
- 1424 - Go-Kameyama, Emperor of Japan
- 1482 - Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, Italian mathematician and astronomer (b. 1397)
- 1493 - Colin Campbell, 1st Earl of Argyll, Scottish politician
- 1521 - Sebastian Brant, Alsatian humanist (b. 1457)
- 1566 - Leonhart Fuchs, German botanist (b. 1501)
- 1641 - Johan Banér, Swedish soldier (b. 1596)
- 1657 - Gustaf Horn, Swedish soldier and politician (b. 1592)
- 1691 - Colonel John Birch, English soldier (b. 1615)
- 1696 - Jean de La Bruyère, French writer (b. 1645)
- 1717 - John Hathorne, American magistrate (b. 1641)
- 1726 - Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St Albans, English soldier (b. 1670)
- 1733 - Barton Booth, English actor (b. 1681)
- 1737 - Nakamikado Emperor of Japan (b. 1702)
- 1774 - King Louis XV of France (b. 1710)
- 1787 - William Watson, English physician and scientist (b. 1715)
- 1792 - John Stevens, American delegate to the Continental Congress
- 1807 - Comte de Rochambeau, French soldier (b. 1725)
- 1818 - Paul Revere, American patriot (b. 1735)
- 1829 - Thomas Young, English physician and linguist (b. 1773)
- 1850 - Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, French chemist and physicist (b. 1778)
- 1863 - Stonewall Jackson, American Confederate general (b. 1824)
- 1889 - Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Russian satirist (b. 1826)
- 1897 - Andrés Bonifacio, Filipino revolutionary leader (b. 1863)
- 1950 - Belle da Costa Greene, librarian, bibliographer, archivist (b. 1883)
- 1955 - Tommy Burns, Canadian boxer (b. 1881)
- 1960 - Yury Olesha, Russian novelist (b. 1899)
- 1977 - Joan Crawford, American actress (b. 1905)
- 1990 - Walker Percy, American author (b. 1916)
- 1994 - John Wayne Gacy, American serial killer (executed) (b. 1942)
- 1999 - Shel Silverstein, American poet and composer (b. 1930)
- 2003 - Milan Vukcevich, Yugoslavian chemist and chess problem composer (b. 1937)
- 2005 - David Wayne, American singer (Metal Church) (b. 1958)
Holidays and Observances
- Feast Day of the following saints in the Roman Catholic Church:
- Solange
- Saint Alphius
- Saint Aurelian
- Saint William of Pontoise
- Saint Calepodius
- Saint Cataldus
- Saint Comgall
- Saint Dioscorides
- Saint Epimachus
- Gordianus
- Isidore the Laborer
- Saint John of Avila
- Saint Quaratus and Quintus
- Saint Peter Van
- Memorial Day of Blessed Damien of Moloka'i in Christianity
- Celebration of the Clandestine Retreat of Ma'at and Re in Ancient Egypt
- Confederate Memorial Day in North Carolina and South Carolina
- Constitution Day in the Federated States of Micronesia
- Inauguration Day in South Africa
- Sita Pujan in Hinduism
- Tin Han's Day in China
- Start of Tori no Mawari/Bird Week in Japan
- Mania (mythology) in Ancient Rome
- Dia de la Madre in Mexico
- Mother's Day - 1987, 1998, 2009
- Yom Ha'atzma'ut in Judaism - 2000
- Lag Ba'omer in Judaism - 2012
External links
- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/10 BBC: On This Day]
- [http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/20050720.html The New York Times: On This Day]
- [http://www.thisdaythatyear.com/may/people10.htm ThisDayThatYear.com on May 10]
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May 9 - May 11 - April 10 - June 10 – listing of all days
ko:5월 10일
ja:5月10日
simple:May 10
th:10 พฤษภาคม
18651865 is a common year starting on Sunday.
Events
- January 31 - American Civil War: Confederate General Robert E. Lee becomes general-in-chief.
- February - The only month in any year that might not have a Full moon.
- 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 13 - American Civil War: The Confederate States of America reluctantly 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 the 21st the Confederate forces had retreated from Greenville, North Carolina.
- March 25 - The "Claywater Meteorite" explodes just before reaching ground level in Vernon County, Wisconsin. Fragments having a combined mass of 1.5 kg were recovered.
- March 25 - American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces capture Fort Steadman from the Union.
- 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: Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet flee the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia which is taken the next day.
- April 6 - German Chemicals producer, Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik(BASF) founded in Mannheim.
- April 9 - American Civil War: General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, effectively ending the American Civil War.
- April 14 - US President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.
- April 21 - German Chemicals producer BASF moves its headquarters and factories from Mannheim to the Hemshof District of Ludwigshafen.
- April 26
- Union cavalry corner John Wilkes Booth and cavalryman Boston Corbett shoots the assassin dead.
- American Civil War: Confederate General Joseph Johnston surrenders his army to General William Tecumseh Sherman at Durham Station, North Carolina.
- April 27 - The steamboat Sultana, carrying 2,300 passengers, explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1,700, most of whom were Union survivors of the Andersonville Prison.
- May 1 - Triple Alliance of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay against Paraguay is formally signed - War of the Triple Alliance has already begun.
- May 4 - American Civil War: Confederate General Richard Taylor, commanding all Confederate forces in Alabama, Mississippi, and eastern Louisiana, surrenders his forces to Union General E.R.S. Canby at Citronelle, Alabama.
- May 5 - 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.
- May 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 ends with a Confederate victory.
- May 23 - Parade down Pennsylvania Ave in Washington, DC to celebrate the ending of the American Civil War.
- May 25 - Mobile magazine explosion: 300 are killed in Mobile, Alabama when an ordnance depot explodes.
- June 2 - American Civil War ends - Confederate forces west of the Mississippi under General Edmund Kirby Smith surrender at Galveston, Texas, becoming the last to do so.
- June 11 - Brazilian navy squadron defeats Paraguayan navy at Riachualo.
- June 19 - American Civil War: Union Major General Gordon Granger lands at Galveston, Texas and informs the people of Texas of the Emancipation Proclamation. This event is celebrated each year as Juneteenth.
- June 23 - American Civil War: At Fort Towson in Oklahoma Territory Confederate General Stand Watie, a Cherokee Indian, surrenders the last significant rebel army.
- July 2 - Salvation Army founded in Whitechapel, London
- July 4 - Lewis Carroll publishes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
- July 5
- William Booth founds the Christian Mission (later renamed to the Salvation Army).
- US Secret Service founded.
- First speed limit introduced in Britain - 2 mph in town and 4 mph in the country
- July 14 - The summit of the Matterhorn in the Alps is reached for the first time; four of the party of seven die in a fall during the descent.
- July 21 - In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots Dave Tutt dead in what is regarded as the first true western showdown.
- July 27 - Welsh settlers arrive in Argentina at Chubut Valley.
- October 11 - Paul Bogle led hundreds of black men and women in a march in Jamaica, starting the Morant Bay rebellion.
- November 10 - Major Henry Wirz, the superintendent of a prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia, is hanged, becoming the only American Civil War soldier to be executed for war crimes.
- November 26 -Battle of Papudo; Spanish ship Covadonga captured by Chileans and Peruvians.
- December 10 - Léopold II becomes King of Belgium.
- December 11 - U.S. Congress created the Appropriations Committee and the Committee on Banking and Commerce. Reducing the tasks of the Committee on Ways and Means.
- December 18 - Thirteenth Constitutional amendment declared ratified by three-fourths of the States of the United States. It forever abolished slavery.
- December 24 - Several US Civil War Confederate veterans form the Ku Klux Klan.
Undated
- Gregor Mendel formulates his theories of | | |
