1864

Years: 1861 1862 1863 - 1864 - 1865 1866 1867
Decades: 1830s 1840s 1850s - 1860s - 1870s 1880s 1890s
Centuries: 18th century - 19th century - 20th century 1864 in art 1864 in literature 1864 in music 1864 in science 1864 in sports List of state leaders in 1864 List of religious leaders in 1864

Table of contents

1 Events
2 Births
3 Deaths

Events

January 21 - Maori Wars: The Tauranga Campaign starts.
February 27 - American Civil War: The first Northern prisoners arrive at the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia.
March 10 - American Civil War: The Red River Campaign begins as Union troops reach Alexandria, Louisiana.
March 11 - A reservoir near Sheffield burst; 250 dead
April 22 - The United States Congress passes the Coinage Act of 1864 which mandates that the inscription "In God We Trust" be placed on all coins minted as United States currency.
May 7 - American Civil War: The Army of the Potomac, under General Ulysses S. Grant, breaks off from the Battle of the Wilderness and moves southwards.
May 11 - American Civil War: Battle of Yellow Tavern - Confederate General JEB Stuart is mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern, Virginia.
May 12 - American Civil War: Battle of Spotsylvania Court House: The "Bloody Angle" - thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers die.
May 13 - American Civil War: Battle of Resaca - the battle begins with Union General Sherman fighting toward Atlanta.
May 15 - American Civil War: Battle of New Market, Virginia - Students from the Virginia Military Institute fight alongside the Confederate Army to force Union General Franz Sigel out of the Shenandoah Valley.
May 18 ÃÂ Civil War gold hoax - New York World and the New York Journal of Commerce publish a fake proclamation that president Abraham Lincoln has issued a draft of 400.000 more soldiers
May 20 - American Civil War: Battle of Bermuda Hundred - In Virginia, 3,000 Confederates and l,200 Union troops are killed in this Union victory.
May 26 - Montana is organized as a United States territory.
June 5 - American Civil War: Battle of Piedmont - Union forces under General David Hunter defeat a Confederate army at Piedmont, Virginia, taking nearly 1,000 prisoners.
June 10 - American Civil War: Battle of Brice's Crossroads - Confederate troops under Nathan Bedford Forrest defeat a much larger Union force led by General Samuel D. Sturgis in Mississippi.
June 12 - American Civil War: Battle of Cold Harbor: - General Ulysses S. Grant pulls his troops from their positions at Cold Harbor, Virginia and moves south.
June 15 - Arlington National Cemetery is established when 200 acres of Arlington Mansion are officially set-aside as a military cemetery by U.S. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.
June 15 - American Civil War: Battle of Petersburg begins - Union forces under General Grant and troops led by Confederate General Robert E. Lee battle for the last time.
July 17 - Battle of the Crater
[[July 18 - President Lincoln issues a true proclamation of conscription of 500.000 men for the US Civil War
July 20 - American Civil War: Battle of Peachtree Creek - Near Atlanta, Georgia, Confederate forces led by General John Bell Hood unsuccessfully attack Union troops under General William T. Sherman.
June 21 - Maori Wars: The Tauranga Campaign ends.
July 22 - American Civil War: Battle of Atlanta - Outside of Atlanta, Georgia, Confederate General Hood leads an unsuccessful attack on Union troops under General Sherman on Bald Hill.
July 24 - American Civil War: Battle of Kernstown - Confederate General Jubal Early defeats Union troops led by General George Crook in an effort to keep the Yankees out of the Shenandoah Valley.
July 28 - American Civil War: Battle of Ezra Church begins - Confederate troops led by General Hood make a third unsuccessful attempt to drive Union forces under General Sherman from Atlanta, Georgia.
July 29 - American Civil War: Confederate spy Belle Boyd is arrested by Union troops and detained at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, DC.
July 30 - American Civil War: Battle of the Crater - Union forces attempt to break Confederate lines by exploding a large bomb under their trenches.
August 1 - foundation of Elgin Watch Company in Elgin, Illinois
August 5 - American Civil War: Battle of Mobile Bay begins - At Mobile Bay near Mobile, Alabama, Admiral David Farragut leads a Union flotilla through Confederate defenses and seals one of the last major Southern ports.
August 18 - American Civil War: Battle of Weldon Railroad - Forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant try to cut a vital Confederate supply-line into Petersburg, Virginia, by attacking the Weldon Railroad forcing the Confederates to use wagons.
August 22 - International Red Cross founded in Geneva, Switzerland.
September 1 - American Civil War: Confederate General John Bell Hood evacuates Atlanta, Georgia after a four month siege mounted by Union General William T. Sherman.
September 1 - 8 - Delegates from the Canadian colonies meet at the Charlottetown Conference to discuss Canadian Confederation.
September 2 - American Civil War: Union forces under General William T. Sherman enter Atlanta, Georgia a day after the Confederate defenders fled the city.
September 7 - American Civil War: Atlanta, Georgia is evacuated on orders of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman.
October 2 - American Civil War: Battle of Saltville - Union forces attack Saltville, Virginia but are defeated by Confederate troops.
October 5 ÃÂ Cyclone kills 70.000 in Calcutta, India
October 9 - American Civil War: Battle of Tom's Brook - Union cavalrymen in the Shenandoah Valley defeat Confederate forces at Tom's Brook, Virginia.
October 28 - American Civil War: Second Battle of Fair Oaks ends - Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant withdraw from Fair Oaks, Virginia, after failing to breach the Confederate defenses around Richmond, Virginia.
October 30 - Second war of Schleswig concluded. Duke Frederick and the Danish Crown recognize Prussia's and Austria's annexation of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg.
October 30 - Helena, Montana is founded after four prospectors discover gold at "Last Chance Gulch."
October 31 - Nevada is admitted as the 36th U.S. state
November 4 - American Civil War: Battle of Johnsonville - At Johnsonville, Tennessee, troops under the command of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest bombard a Union supply base with artillery and destroy millions of dollars in materiel.
November 8 - U.S. presidential election, 1864: Abraham Lincoln is reelected in an overwhelming victory over George McClellan.
November 15 - American Civil War: Sherman's March to the Sea begins - Union General Sherman burns Atlanta and starts to move south, destroying everything in his path in order to punish the Confederates for starting the war.
November 22 - American Civil War: Sherman's March to the Sea: Confederate General John Bell Hood invades Tennessee in an unsuccessful attempt to draw Union General Sherman from Georgia.
November 29 - Indian Wars: Sand Creek Massacre - Colorado volunteers led by Colonel John Chivington massacre at least 400 Cheyenne and Arapahoe noncombatants at Sand Creek, Colorado (where they had been given permission to camp).
November 30 - American Civil War: Battle of Franklin - The Army of Tennessee led by General Hood mounts a dramatically unsuccessful frontal assault on Union positions around Franklin, Tennessee (Hood lost six generals and almost a third of his troops).
December 4 - American Civil War: Sherman's March to the Sea - At Waynesboro, Georgia, forces under Union General Judson Kilpatrick prevent troops led by Confederate General Joseph Wheeler from interfering with Union General Sherman's campaign of destroying a wide swath of the South on his march to the Gulf of Mexico (Union forces did suffer more than three times the casualties as the Confederates, however).
James Clerk Maxwell discovers Microwaves
First Geneva Convention
Dannevirke destroyed
Syllabus errorum: Pope Pius IX condemns theological liberalism as an error and claims for the supremacy of RC Church authority over the civil society. He also condemns rationalism and socialism
Principality of Abkhazia annexed by Russia
Haiti declares independence
Brazil invades Uruguay in support of Venancio Flores. Paraguay attacks Brazil.

Births

January 8 - Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, second in line to the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
January 13 -- Wilhelm Wien, physicist
March 13 - Alexej von Jawlensky, Russian impressionist painter
March 19 - Charles Marion Russell, artist (+ 1926)
April 21 - Max Weber, sociologist (+ 1920)
July 13 - John Jacob Astor IV, American businessman, inventor (+ 1912)
October 25 - Alexander Tikhonovich Grechaninov, composer (+ 1956)
November 24 - Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, painter
December 6 - William S. Hart, silent film star (+ 1946)

Deaths

January 13 - Stephen Foster, composer of Camptown Races, Oh! Susannah
May 19 - Nathaniel Hawthorne, author
December 19 - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, anarchist
Roger Taney - United States Supreme Court Justice
Tuanku Imam Bonjol - Indonesian religious and military leader
Emil Nobel - the younger brother of Alfred Nobel killed in their experiments with nitroglycerin.