This Year in History:
1862
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
President Abraham Lincoln reluctantly restores Union General George B. McClellan to full command after General John Pope’s disaster at the Second Battle of Bull Run, Virginia, on August 29 and…
Union soldiers find a copy of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s orders detailing the Confederates’ plan for the Antietam campaign near Frederick, Maryland. But Union General George B. McClellan was…
General Robert E. Lee’s exhausted Confederate forces hold off the pursuing Yankees by closing two passes through Maryland’s South Mountain, allowing Lee time to gather his forces further west along…
Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson captures Harpers Ferry, Virginia (present‑day West Virginia), and some 12,000 Union soldiers as General Robert E. Lee’s army moves north into Maryland. The Federal garrison…
In the early afternoon on September 17, 1862, just about 200 miles from where the Battle of Antietam was taking place, another Civil War‑era tragedy occurs: Three explosions rip through…
Beginning early on the morning of September 17, 1862, Confederate and Union troops in the Civil War clash near Maryland’s Antietam Creek in the bloodiest single day in American military…
On this day in 1862, at the Battle of Antietam, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and Union General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac fight…
Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s army pulls away from Antietam Creek, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and heads back to Virginia. The day before, at the Battle of Antietam, Lee’s force had…
Union troops under General William Rosecrans defeat a Confederate force commanded by General Sterling Price at Iuka in northern Mississippi. The Battle of Iuka was part of a Confederate attempt…
On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issues a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which sets a date for the freedom of more than 3 million enslaved in the United States and…
Motivated by his growing concern for the inhumanity of slavery as well as practical political concerns, President Abraham Lincoln changes the course of the war and American history by issuing…
On this day, Count Leo Tolstoy married Sophie Andreyevna Behrs. The 34‑year‑old Tolstoy was nearly twice the age of his teenage bride. After losing his parents as a child, Tolstoy…
On this day in 1862, Confederates under General Earl Van Dorn attemptto recapture Corinth, a vital rail center in Mississippi. However, the following day, the Second Battle of Cornith ended…
The Confederate invasion of Kentucky stalls when Union General Don Carlos Buell stops General Braxton Bragg at the Battle of Perryville. In August 1862, two Confederate forces, commanded by Bragg…
On this day in 1862, Confederate General John Bankhead Magruder is given command of the Trans‑Mississippi Department. A Maryland native, Magruder attended West Point and graduated in 1830. He distinguished…
Confederate cavalry leader General J.E.B. Stuart loots Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, on a daring raid in the aftermath of the bloody Battle of Antietam in Maryland. Stuart left Virginia on October 9…
On this day in 1862, Union General Don Carlos Buell is replaced because of his ineffective pursuit of the Confederates after the Battle of Perryville, Kentucky, on October 8. He…
On this day in 1862, Union General Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel, commander of the Department of the South, diesin Beaufort, South Carolina. Born in Kentucky in 1809 or 1810, Mitchel grew…
In Minnesota, after five weeks of trial proceedings centered around actions taken during the U.S.‑Dakota War of 1862, more than 300 Dakota men are found guilty of raping and murdering Anglo…
A tortured relationship ends when President Abraham Lincoln removes General George B. McClellan from command of the Army of the Potomac. McClellan ably built the army in the early stages…
