Decades: 1810s1820s1830s1840s1850s - 1860s - 1870s1880s1890s1900s1910s
Years: 18571858185918601861 - 1862 - 18631864186518661867
Events
- January 30 - The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor is launched.
- February 1 - Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic" is published for the first time (Atlantic Monthly).
- February 6 - American Civil War: Ulysses S. Grant gives the United States its first victory of the war, by capturing Fort Henry, Tennessee
- February 15 - American Civil War: General Ulysses S. Grant attacks Fort Donelson, Tennessee and captures it the next day.
- March 8 - American Civil War: The iron-clad CSS Virginia (formerly USS Merrimack) is launched at Hampton Roads, Virginia.
- March 9 - American Civil War: First battle between two ironclad warships USS Monitor v CSS Virginia
- March 28 - American Civil War: Battle of Glorieta Pass - In New Mexico Union forces succeed in stoping the Confederate invasion of New Mexico territory.
- April 6 - American Civil War: In Tennessee, the Battle of Shiloh begins.
- April 7 - American Civil War: Battle of Shiloh - Union Army under General Ulysses S. Grant defeat the Confederates near Shiloh, Tennessee.
- August 28 through August 30 - Battle of Second Manassas
- September 17 - Union forces defeat Confederate troops at the Battle of Antietam, in the bloodiest day in the American Civil War (with over 20,000 casualties).
- December 13 - Battle of Fredericksburg
- December 30 - The USS Monitor sinks off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina
- December 31 - American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union (thus dividing Virginia in two).
- Mexican army defeats the French army in the Battle of Puebla.
- Otto von Bismarck becomes prime minister of Prussia
- Richard Jordan Gatling patents the Gatling gun.
- Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev
- January 24 - Edith Wharton, writer
- January 29 - Frederick Delius, composer (+ 1934)
- March 17 - Silvio Gesell, economist (+ 1930)
- March 28 - Aristide Briand, politician, winner of the Nobel Prize in peace 1926 (+ 1932)
- August 22 - Claude Debussy, French composer
- December 8 - Georges Feydeau, French playwright
- George Ernest Morisson, Australian adventurer and journalist
- January 10 - Samuel Colt, inventor
- January 18 - John Tyler, former President of the United States, member of the Congress of the Confederate States of America
- July 24 - Martin Van Buren, eighth president of the United States
- August 10 - Shusaku Honinbo, Go player
- US - Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act