Republican congressman John Sherman wrote to his brother William T. Sherman who was in Alexandria, Louisiana serving as the first director of the Louisiana State Seminary, later Louisiana State University.  He urged him to resign his current post, saying that if he stayed he would "in all human probability be involved in complications from which you cannot escape with honor."  He also said that if his brother were to return to Ohio, he himself would investigate his return to the Army calling that "not so difficult a task as you imagine..."   (By John Osborne)

Colonel William T. Sherman was writing to his wife in Ohio from Alexandria, Louisiana, where he was the first director of the Louisiana State Seminary, later Louisiana State University.  He had been planning for her to join him in Louisiana but told her that the political situation dictated they wait.  He feared that he would have to soon resign his post and agonized that he would have to go to California or "some foreign country where I could earn the means of living for you and myself.  I see no chance in Ohio for me."  (By John Osborne)

Colonel William T. Sherman was writing to his wife in Ohio from Alexandria, Louisiana, where he was the first director of the Louisiana State Seminary, later Louisiana State University.  He gave her local results -- Breckinridge first, then Bell, then Douglas -- and said that he had not voted, though he was eligible, but probably would have voted for Bell.  National results had not yet reached Alexandria but he observed that if secession were the final outcome  "it would be unwise for us to be here. Still I hope for quiet..." (By John Osborne)

Colonel William T. Sherman was writing to his wife in Ohio from Alexandria, Louisiana, where he was the first director of the Louisiana State Seminary, later Louisiana State University.  After a long week of selecting new cadets, Sherman was looking forward to the opening of the term on the following Monday. On the election he told her that "people here talk about how disunion was a fixed thing ... I say but little, try to mind my own business and await the issue of events."  (By John Osborne)

The steamer Wabash Valley, newly leased to the Grand Haven and Milwaukee Railroad, left Milwaukee for Grand Haven, Michigan with thirty-six passengers and a cargo of 1,400 barrels of flour. Caught in a storm, the steamer was driven ashore near Muskegon, Michigan at around 3 a.m.  The vessel was completely destroyed, but all aboard scrambled to safety and much of the cargo was later salvaged.  (By John Osborne)

In the afternoon, a boiler at the Davis Steam Saw Mill in Omaha exploded, killing its operator and injuring seriously two others, including Thomas Davis, the owner.  The mill was wrecked and the exploding boiler thrown more than 150 feet.  This was latest in a series of fatal boiler explosions, a fact that had already earlier drawn comment in a New York Times editorial.  (By John Osborne)