The Louisiana legislature had over-ridden a veto from Governor Wells to provide New Orleans with early municipal elections.  As Republicans feared, Democrats won all but a few elections across the city with John T. Monroe returning as Mayor.  Monroe was temporarily barred from taking office when military authorities questioned his Confederate past but President Johnson communicated that there was no reason for delay and Monroe was sworn in on March 19, 1866 along with a city council under complete Democratic Party control. Monroe was later removed as mayor, however, in March 1867, under the Reconstruction Act. (By John Osborne)

The Louisiana legislature had earlier passed a bill that mandated earlier than scheduled municipal elections in New Orleans. Governor James Wells, worried about what he called bluntly "a subsidized scum" influencing the election with violence in a county that comprised half the state's electorate, vetoed the measure.  The Republican went on to recommend that holding elections on the scheduled date would provide more time for calm and reform of what he saw as a tempestuous, and pro-Democrat political situation. The Louisiana legislature promptly over-rode the veto and the election took place on March 12, 1866. (By John Osborne) 

During the night, near Lebanon, a town in central Kentucky, a large band of mounted nightriders, well organized and reportedly directed with cavalry bugle calls, terrorized the local black population with the goal of driving them out of the area.  More than a hundred horsemen, know as "Skaag's men" after their leader's alias, attacked and damaged around twenty African-American family homes in the county, causing heavy damage and administering beatings throughout the night but killed no-one.  This action prompted an increased Union Army presence and an increase in the Lebanon garrison.  (By John Osborne)

In the second such incident in the year, bandits derailed an overnight passenger train in the early hours of the morning and robbed its passengers.  The derailment took place near Frankin, Kentucky in the south central Simpson County.  Fire broke out in several of the wrecked cars so the main target of the safe in the express car eluded them but they did methodically seize the belongings and valuables of passengers at gunpoint.  No serious injuries were reported and several of the large gang were later arrested.  (By John Osborne)

Late in the evening a group of robbers loosened the rails near Bristow, Kentucky, near Bowling Green in Warren County.  They then attached wires and when the train approached pulled away the rails, wrecking the train and seriously injuring a conductor.  The goal was the safe in the baggage car which yielded a reported $10,000 but passengers on the stricken train were also robbed of their valuables at gunpoint.  The criminals escaped and were never apprehended. (By John Osborne)

In Louisville, Kentucky, a mass meeting of Democrats, with Governor Thomas Elliott Bramlette in the chair, gathered in support of President Johnson's policies, especially his recent veto of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill.  Bramlette praised Johnson in a speech and a resolution requesting that the Freedmen's Bureau be removed from the state was passed overwhelmingly, stating that the welfare if black Kentuckians was a state affair.  (By John Osborne) 

The Reverend John Keble, the well-known British poet and church reformer, died in Bournemouth in southwest England as he attempted a recuperation from a long illness.  His "Assize Serman" in 1833 is largely credited with the beginning of the Oxfod Movement which reinvigourated the conservative wing of the Church of England.  He was seventy-three years old.  (By John Osborne)

Despondent and mentally-ill Senator James Henry Lane of Kansas has died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on July 11, 1866 at Fort Leavenworth.  Governor Samuel J. Crawford appointed Civil War veteran cavalryman Edmund G. Ross to replace him.  Ross would later become famous for his deciding vote against the impeachment of President Johnson. He was not re-elected and became a Democrat.  (By John Osborne)