Edward Creighton had in early July personally dug the first post hole for his Transcontinental Telegraph linking Omaha, Nebraska with Sacramento, California. Less than four months later, with Western Union funding, this final link across the continent was completed and the first telegraph message sent coast to coast.  The Pony Express ceased operations two days later.  (By John Osborne)  

Edward Creighton had earlier surveyed the route for his Transcontinental Telegraph linking Omaha, Nebraska with Sacramento, California.  With Western Union funding, he dug the first pole hole personally and less than four months later, on October 24, 1861, sent the first telegraph message coast to coast.  Creighton became the richest man in Nebraska and later endowed Creighton University in Omaha.  (By John Osborne)  

Troops of the 28th Pennsylvania under Colonel John White Geary engaged several hundred Confederate troops dug in on the opposite Virginia side of the Potomac River.  Rifle fire and artillery managed to drive away the Confederates and Pennsylvania troops crossed the river briefly and burned the houses their opponents had been using for cover.  Few casualties were reported on either side.  (By John Osborne) 

Prince Philippe d'Orleans, Comte de Paris, was the twenty-three year-old grandson of King Louis Philippe, the deposed king of France.  He and his younger brother, Robert, Duc de Chartres, travelled to the United States and took commissions in the Union Army and served on the staff of General George McClellan during the Peninsular Campaign.  Prince Phillipe was an awowed democrat and a noted historian who wrote a well-regarded four-volume History of the Civil War in America (1876). He died in England in 1894. (By John Osborne)