The House of Representatives Republican caucus, 124 strong, met in the evening and voted unanimously on a recommendation from Thaddeus Stevens and his Special Committee that Congress set up a Joint Committee of six congressmen and six senators to gauge "the condition" of the former Confederate states.  No member from former Confederate states would be seated until the committee had made its determination "whether they, or any of them are entitled to be represented in either house of Congress...".  (By John Osborne)   

Provisional North Carolina Governor William Woods Holden reported to President Johnson that his state's legislature had voted to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery.  Six legislators only had voted nay.  The passage of the amendment was being made essentially a condition for former Confederate states to restore complete relations with the Union.  (By John Osborne) 

The ticket agent of the Boston and Worcester railroad, arriving for work at six a.m. at the depot office in Milford, Massachusetts was shocked to discover a man with severe head wounds laying unconscious in front of the office safe.  Amos Lee, the would be safe cracker, had at some time during the night, attempted to blow the safe with dynamite but suffered fatal injuries himself. His accomplices had taken the money in the safe, made Lee comfortable by resting his head on the ticket agent's uniform overcoat, and left. (By John Osborne) 

Close to midnight, a night train loaded with troops from the Ninety-Sixth New York Infantry hit a broken rail on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad near the Warrenton Junction and threw its rear car down an embankment.  The railroad brakeman and two New York soldiers were killed instantly and twenty-eight others in the car were injured, some severely.  (By John Osborne) 

The prominent former Georgia senator and leading figure in the birth of the Confederacy Robert Toombs had eluded federal troops for months, narrowly escaping arrest several times.  He reached New Orleans and sailed this day for Havana, Cuba aboard the steamship Alabama. From there he went to Europe and did not return to Georgia till 1868.  He refused to apply for a pardon and died in December 1885, an "unreconstructed" rebel.  (By John Osborne)

The Niagara had left New Orleans for St. Louis and collided with the Post Boy, a steamboat heading downriver from Cairo, Illinois, at about nine in the evening near Helena, Arkansas.  The Niagara sank within minutes and losses were heavy among her 184 deck passengers, mostly soldiers from a U.S. Colored Troops regiment, heading home for discharge.  Survivors were taken aboard the Post Boy to Helena.  (By John Osborne) 

An early morning explosion ripped through the Penn Treaty Iron Works on Beach Street in Philadelphia when a boiler exploded.  Thanks perhaps to the early hour only one man killed and several others injured.  Fortunately, a water tank was overturned in the incident and doused completely any possible resulting fire.  (By John Osborne) 

The famous British boxing champion, best known in the United States for his epic and controversial battle against American John Heenan for a "world championship" at Farnborough, Hampshire on April 1860, died of diabetes and alcoholism in London.  His funeral the following week saw thousands of people thronging into Highgate Cemetery and another riot between police and mourners excluded outside the gates.  (By John Osborne) 

President Lincoln had controversially suspended the right of the writ of Habeas Corpus throughout the country on December 15, 1863. By a similar proclamation, President Andrew Johnson lifted this suspension in all the states that had been loyal to the Union but retained it southern and southwestern areas, including Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas North and South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, the District of Columbia, and the New Mexico and Arizona Territories.  (By John Osborne)   

Syvester Horton Rosecrans was the youngest brother of Civil War General William Rosecrans who had converted to Catholicism at the same time as his brother.  Sylvester rose to become the first Catholic bishop of Columbus, Ohio.  On the Saturday before Christmas, walking home from the cathedral in Cincinnati to his home at Sedamsville, two men demanded his money and fired at him when he ran.  He was hit in the leg but the wound was not serious and he was able to escape.  (By John Osborne)