Major Events
- Jan 4 New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad St, near Wall Street in New York City
- Jan 31 Congress passes, by vote of 121-24, the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution, abolishing slavery in the United States – except as punishment for a crime [1] [2]
- Jan 31 General Robert E. Lee named Commander-in-Chief of Confederate Armies during US Civil War
- Feb 4 Robert E. Lee is named general-in-chief of Confederate forces
- Feb 17 Columbia in South Carolina burns down during the American Civil War
- Apr 9 Confederate General Robert E. Lee and 26,765 troops surrender at Appomattox Court House to US Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant ending the Civil War in North Virginia
- Apr 14 US President Abraham Lincoln is shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington; he dies a day later
- Apr 27 Steamboat "SS Sultana" explodes in the Mississippi River, killing up to 1,800 of the 2,427 passengers in the greatest maritime disaster in United States history. Most were paroled Union POWs on their way home.
- May 9 President Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation declaring armed resistance in the South is virtually at an end; this is the commonly accepted end date of the American Civil War
- Jun 19 Union General Gordon Granger declares slaves are free in Texas, now the date the end of slavery is celebrated across the US as Juneteenth
- Jun 22 The CSS Shenandoah fires the last shot of the American Civil War in the Bering Strait to indicate surrender
- Jul 2 One-time Methodist Reform Church minister William Booth and his wife Catherine Booth found the East London Christian Mission, now known as the Salvation Army
- Jul 5 US Secret Service begins operating under the Treasury Department
- Nov 26 "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll is published in America
- Dec 6 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution is ratified, abolishing slavery (except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted) [1]
- More 1865 Events
1865 in Music
- Jun 10 Richard Wagner's opera "Tristan und Isolde" premieres in Munich, Germany
- Dec 17 Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8, "Unfinished Symphony", premieres in Vienna with Johann von Herbeck conducting
Did You Know?
American Civil War: CSS Shenandoah is the last Confederate combat unit to surrender after circumnavigating the globe, on its cruise that sank or captured 37 vessels
Erich Ludendorff
Clyde Fitch
Nellie Bly
George V
Warren G. Harding
Rudyard Kipling
Henri Desgrange
George LohmannMore People Born in 1865
Abraham Lincoln
John Wilkes Booth
Henry John TempleMore 1865 Deaths
Articles About 1865
John Wilkes Booth at Lincoln's Inauguration
A photo of Abraham Lincoln's second inauguration in 1865, highlighting the location of his eventual assassin John Wilkes Booth as Lincoln makes his speechMarch 4
America’s Civil War Comes Home To Roost
On this day a surrender agreement ending the American Civil War was signed in the house of a man who had been driven out of his first home by the hostilities.April 9
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln is shot in the Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. by John Wilkes BoothApril 14
Abraham Lincoln's Deathbed
The bed on which Abraham Lincoln died hours after being shot by John Wilkes Booth, taken shortly after Lincoln's body was removedApril 15
Juneteenth
The declaration issued in Texas informing citizens that all slaves were free as of June 19, 1865June 19
Execution of Lincoln's Assassins
Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt are hanged for their part in the assassination of Abraham LincolnJuly 7
Women And Politics: The Passions of Palmerston
Queen Victoria had an intense dislike for her Prime Minister Lord Palmerston. But other women took a quite different view of the man dubbed ‘Lord Cupid’.October 18
Famous Weddings in 1865
- Jan 16 Confederate Brigadier-General John Pegram marries Hetty Cary (US Civil War)
- Sep 27 Physicist Johannes van der Waals (27) weds Anna Magdalena Smit (18)
Charles Dickens
Giuseppe Verdi
Andrew Johnson
