Civil War Homefront

    Date Event
    In Philadelphia, John Wanamaker and Nathan Brown open their first store on Market Street
    In Harrisburg, the Pennsylvania legislature enacts pensions for war widows with children
    - The Presbyterian General Assembly is meeting in Philadelphia and its decisions will split the Church
    In Philadelphia, the Cooper Shop Volunteer Refreshment Saloon opens
    Philadelphia man arrested on a charge of inciting riot then freed on First Amendment grounds
    In downtown St. Louis, Missouri, nervous Union troops, thinking they were shot at, fire on civilians, killing six
    Federal troops arrest Baltimore's four Police Commissioners in pre-dawn raids on their homes
    With a presidential proclamation, Abraham Lincoln calls for a day of "humiliation, prayer, and fasting"
    Editor of a Southern-leaning newspaper tarred and feathered in Haverhill, Massachusetts
    Slave owning Philadelphian Pierce Butler, former husband of Fanny Kemble, arrested for treason
    - Federal troops in Maryland swoop to arrest pro-secession legislators, officials, and newspaper editors
    In New York City, prominent Catholic editor James A. McMaster arrested and his journal suspended
    Philadelphia arms itself to resist any Confederate attack on the city
    In Baltimore, federal troops begin a systematic search for arms caches in the city
    U.S. Post Office excludes "disloyal" Louisville newspaper from its mails and post offices
    The Union, by presidential proclamation, holds a day of "humiliation, prayer, and fasting" for the nation
    In Missouri, U.S. Army officials seize $33,000 of Cherokee Nation funds held in St. Louis banks
    The Confederate Post Office issues its first postage stamps, bearing the likeness of Jefferson Davis
    In Philadelphia, the Committee on the Safety and Defense of the City reports on its preparations
    On E Street in the capital, the Washington Infirmary, now a military hospital, burns to the ground
    Republican governors Andrew of Massachusetts and Ramsey of Minnesota easily re-elected
    In Maryland, Unionists triumph in the statewide elections and Augustus Bradford is elected as governor
    - In Eastern Tennessee, local Unionists burn five railroad bridges prompting a furious Confederate response
    Jefferson Davis declares a day of "fasting, humiliation, and prayer" across the Confederacy
    Julia Ward Howe composes the verses that will become the words to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"
    In Baltimore, a hotel suspected of being a Confederate mail station is raided and seized
    In Paducah, Kentucky, Union officers clash over the treatment of a local secessionist
    Philadelphia's Home Guard, instituted in September, now numbers around four thousand members
    Ethel Beers publishes her poem "The Picket Guard" with its famous lines "All Quiet Along the Potomac"
    In Greeneville, Tennessee, the Confederate military executes two local Unionists for burning railroad bridges
    - A devastating fire destroys a third of Charleston, South Carolina destroying hundreds of historic buildings
    Kansas Volunteers burn the western Missouri towns of Papinsville and Butler in Bates County
    At the Academy of Music in New York City, William Hanlon debuts his celebrated trapeze act
    In Missouri, Union troops searching for Confederate guerrillas burn most of Platte City to the ground
    In Jackson County, Virginia, Confederate irregulars raid the town of Ripley and rob the post office
    In Knoxville, Tennessee, a condemned Unionist saboteur receives an eleventh hour reprieve from President Davis
    Union Colonel James A. Mulligan, hero of the Battle of Lexington, speaks for a Catholic charity in Philadelphia
    Banks in New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia suspend payment in gold and silver
    Federal Income Tax takes effect in the United States
    In Annapolis, Unionist Augustus Bradford is sworn in as the 32nd Governor of Maryland
    In Columbus, National Union Democrat David Tod is sworn in as the 25th Governor of Ohio
    Agoston Haraszthy brings 100,000 vine cuttings from Europe to the vineyards of northern California
    St. Louis southern sympathizer contests local tax to help refugees and lands in jail, with his lawyer
    In Washington DC, President and Mrs. Lincoln attend an evening of Verdi and Bellini opera
    Verses of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" published anonymously in the Atlantic Monthly
    Massachusetts court orders six men to trial for the August tarring and feathering of a Haverhill editor
    In Warren County, Kentucky, Confederate forces begin the evacuation of Bowling Green
    In Philadelphia, the city's War of 1812 veterans organize a militia company
    In Warren County, Kentucky, Confederate forces complete the evacuation of Bowling Green
    In Washington, the House of Representatives votes 125-7 to establish a Department of Agriculture
    The victory at Fort Donelson met with enthusiastic celebrations in Philadelphia and across the North
    War souvenir kills two young men in a Camden, New Jersey hotel
    Massachusetts votes to build its own ironclads to defend its coast against the Confederate Navy
    The governors of Pennsylvania and New Jersey also react to the emergence of naval ironclad warfare
    In Cincinnati, Wendell Phillips is forced from the stage as he attempts agitate for abolition and disunion
    Abolitionist lecture in Burlington, New Jersey ends in chaos and a barrage of rotten eggs
    Massive explosion at a Philadelphia cartridge factory kills sixteen people and levels the complex
    The War Department suspends military recruitment across the North
    - In billiards, Michael Foley wins his much anticipated return match with Dudley Kavanaugh
    On Fifth Avenue in New York City, the Delmonico Brothers open their third establishment
    Confederate president Jefferson Davis signs the first Conscription Act in American history
    In Virginia, defiant Fredericksburg officials surrender their town to Union General Irvin McDowell
    The U.S. Congress completes a bill to establish a new mint in Denver, Colorado
    In Richmond, Virginia, Union agent Timothy Webster becomes the first spy executed during the war
    U.S. House censures former Secretary of War Simon Cameron for his lax fiscal dealings while in office
    Major General Benjamin Butler begins his notorious eight months as military governor of New Orleans
    In Washington, President Lincoln signs a bill to establish a separate Department of Agriculture
    Maryland slaveholders meet President Lincoln to complain about non-enforcement of Fugitive Slave Act
    President Lincoln signs the Homestead Act
    The War Department reopens military recruitment across the North
    The harness racing season opens in New York City with a $800 match race on Long Island
    Virginia working women demonstrate and then precipitate a "Bread Riot"in the Confederate capital
    In municipal elections, Unionists wrest political control of Des Moines, Iowa from Democrats
    The well-to-do women of Springfield, Illinois form a "Loyal Ladies League"
    The American Temperance Union holds its annual meeting in New York City
    In Dixon, Illinois, four thousand Union supporters dedicate a new Unionist meeting hall
    In New Jersey, a clandestine bareknuckle prize fight ends in mayhem
    Indiana's Democrats hold a mass meeting at their convention in Indianapolis
    Registration of those eligible under the Conscription Act begins in New York City
    In Ohio, a massive Union meeting at Mount Vernon in Knox County reaffirms Ohio's loyalty
    In Wisconsin, Provost-Marshal's Office in Milwaukee moved to Racine over anti-draft mob threats
    In New York, German leaders angrily defend German-born Union troops
    - In Chicago, the American Medical Association holds its first annual meeting since 1860
    The press reports that a draft enroller in Berks County, Pennsylvania resigns in fear of his life
    New York City's editors meet to condemn infringements of the free press
    In Indiana, sheriff's deputies escorting the federal draft commissioner are fatally ambushed
    The New York Yacht Club holds its annual regatta around Manhattan
    In central Ohio, serious armed resistance to the draft enrollment grows more threatening
    At "Fort Fizzle" in Holmes County, Ohio, federal troops end active draft resistance
    Striking railroad company workers riot in Albany, New York
    Federal draft official shot dead from ambush in Sullivan County, Indiana
    - In New York City, violent protests against the Draft Lottery develop swiftly into four days of deadly rioting
    Rioters in New York City loot and burn the Colored Orphans' Asylum on Fifth Avenue
    Rioters brutally beat, torture, and kill Colonel Henry F. O'Brian, commander of the 11th New York Volunteers
    Washington D.C. suspends the draft in the riot-stricken city of New York
    The military draft lottery resumes in New York City, more than a month after the Draft Riots
    More than a thousand names are drawn in the resumed Draft Lottery in New York's Sixteenth Ward
    In New York City elections, Independent Democrat C. Godfrey Gunther wins the mayor's race
    The Great Western Sanitary Fair opens in Cincinnati, Ohio
    Archbishop John Hughes is buried in a ceremony at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City
    The New York City fire department welcomes home the Second Regiment of Fire Zouaves
    In Philadelphia, a Massachusetts colonel dispenses rough justice to a tavern owner for selling his men liquor
    In Connecticut, the new Travellers' Insurance Company sells the country's first travel insurance policy
    The combined Sanitary Fair of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware opens in Philadelphia
    In San Francisco, William Ralston founds the Bank of California, initial capital two million dollars in gold
    Confederate raiders infiltrating from Canada fail in an attempt to rob the town bank in Calais, Maine
    In Philadelphia, parts of a female asylum collapse, killing fifteen patients and injuring twenty more
    Confederate raiders infiltrating from Canada attack the Vermont town of St. Albans
    Eighteen years after ground was broken, the new Roman Catholic Basilica of Philadelphia is dedicated
    - In New York City, Confederate agents make an apparent but failed attempt to fire much of Manhattan
    In Texas, the bodies of the German-American victims of the 1862 "Nueces Massacre" are buried together.
    In Philadelphia, the Cooper Shop Volunteer Refreshment Saloon closes its doors
    The U.S. Supreme Court decides "Ex Parte Milligan" in favor of the plaintiffs and orders them released
    In Columbus, Ohio, Lambdin P. Milligan walks free after almost two years in prison
    Former Maryland congressman Henry May, imprisoned at the start of the Civil War, dies in Baltimore.
    George W.L. Bickley, notorious Copperhead and founder of the the Knights of the Golden Circle, dies in Baltimore.
    John A. Andrew, War Governor of Massachusetts, dies suddenly at his home in Boston, aged forty-nine.
    Date Title
    New York Herald, “Our Fashionable Summer Resorts,” June 2, 1861
    Raleigh (NC) Register, “Signs of Distress,” June 5, 1861
    Fayetteville (NC) Observer, “The Mothers and Wives,” June 6, 1861
    Ripley (OH) Bee, “Fugitives from Oppression,” June 20, 1861
    New York Times, “Famine Among the Confederates,” June 20, 1861
    Atchison (KS) Freedom’s Champion, “The Fourth of July,” June 22, 1861
    Fayetteville (NC) Observer, “From the West,” June 24, 1861
    Cleveland (OH) Herald, “Does It Pay to Feed Passing Troops?,” July 3, 1861
    Charleston (SC) Mercury, “A Pleasant Summer Beverage,” July 11, 1861
    New York Tribune, “Our Soldiers’ Families,” July 16, 1861
    Charleston (SC) Mercury, “The Mississippi Women,” July 18, 1861
    Memphis (TN) Appeal, “Clothing For Our Army,” August 8, 1861
    Cleveland (OH) Herald, “Vallandigham’s District,” August 15, 1861
    Fayetteville (NC) Observer, “A Dismal Foreboding,” August 22, 1861
    Atchison (KS) Freedom’s Champion, “The Cry of Peace,” August 31, 1861
    Gen. William Nelson's Proclamation and Offer of Amnesty in Kentucky, October 17, 1861
    George W. Phillips, Assistant U.S. Marshall, to Judges of U.S. Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, October 26, 1861
    Gen. B. F. Kelley to the People of Hampshire County, Virginia, October 26, 1861
    Gen. John Dix to the U.S. Marshals in Maryland, Instructions on the upcoming State Elections, November 1, 1861
    Major-General John Adams Dix, To the People of Accomac and Northampton Counties of Virginia, November 13, 1861
    President Jefferson Davis, Message to the Confederate Congress, November 18, 1861
    Brigadier-General Henry Lockwood, To the People of Accomac and Northampton Counties of Virginia, November 23, 1861
    Judah P. Benjamin to Colonel W.B. Wood, Instructions concerning Eastern Tennessee, November 25, 1861
    Colonel Charles R. Jennison, Proclamation to the People of Eastern Missouri, November 26, 1861
    Brigadier-General Charles F. Smith, General Orders No. 36, Paducah, Kentucky, November 27, 1861
    Major-General David Hunter to Trustees of Platte City, Missouri, December 1, 1861
    Claiborne Fox Jackson to the Soldiers and Fellow-Citizens of Missouri, December 13, 1861
    Major-General Henry Wager Halleck, General Order 32, Department of Missouri, December 22, 1861
    Colonel James A. Garfield to the Citizens of the Big Sandy Valley, Kentucky, January 16, 1862
    Fayetteville (NC) Observer, “Burning Towns,” February 24, 1862
    Proclamation of Governor John A. Andrew, March 1, 1862
    Fayetteville (NC) Observer, “Mob-Law by the Ladies,” April 7, 1862
    President Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation to the Nation
    Shreveport (LA) News, “The Ladies Making Shoes,” April 25, 1862
    Major General Benjamin F. Butler, Proclamation to the Citizens of New Orleans, May 1, 1862
    Major-General Mansfield Lovell, General Order 17, May 3, 1862
    Abraham Lincoln to Henry Wilson, May 15, 1862
    Raleigh (NC) Register, “Reception of the Wounded,” December 24, 1862
    Carlisle (PA) American Volunteer, “Every Man To Duty,” July 9, 1863
    Carlisle (PA) American, “What Invasion Has Taught Pennsylvania,” July 15, 1863
    Abraham Lincoln to Horatio Seymour, August 7, 1863
    Stephen Minot Weld, Jr. to Stephen Minot Weld, Sr, Annapolis, Maryland, March 25, 1864
    Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Great Central Sanitary Fair, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 16, 1864
    Abraham Lincoln to Mrs. Lydia Bixby, November 21, 1864
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