1860 in the United States

1860 in the United States
Years:	1857 1858 1859 – 1860 – 1861 1862 1863
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33 stars (1859–1861)
Timeline of United States history History of the United States (1849–65)

Events from the year 1860 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal Government

• President: James Buchanan (D-Pennsylvania)
• Vice President: John C. Breckinridge (D-Kentucky)
• Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: William Pennington (R-New Jersey)
• Congress: 36th

Events

Abraham Lincoln is elected president with no support from the South

January–March

• January 10 – The Pemberton Mill collapses in Lawrence, Massachusetts, killing 145 workers.
• February 22 – The New England Shoemakers Strike of 1860 begins in Lynn, Massachusetts
• February 26 – 1860 Wiyot Massacre: 80 to 250 Wiyot people were killed on Indian Island, near Eureka, California.
• February 27 – Abraham Lincoln gives his Cooper Union speech.

April–June

• April 3 – The Pony Express begins its first run from Saint Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California.
• May 1 – A Chondrite type meteorite falls to earth in Muskingum County, Ohio near the town of New Concord.
• May 6 – The Paiute War begins as Northern Paiutes raided Williams Station in Utah Territory.
• May 9 – The U.S. Constitutional Union Party holds its convention and nominates John Bell for President of the United States.
• May 12 – Paiute War – First Battle of Pyramid Lake: American vigilantes seek out the Paiutes and are soundly defeated. Disorganized and outnumbered, nearly all of the vigilantes are killed or wounded.
• May 18 – Abraham Lincoln is selected as the U.S. presidential candidate for the Republican Party.
• June 2–4 – Paiute War – Second Battle of Pyramid Lake: A well-organized force of militia and U.S. Army soldiers seek out the Paiutes and defeat them in the final battle of the war.

July–September

• August – The Paiute War ends with an informal ceasefire.
• August 25 – The Stone's Prairie Riot takes place in Payson and Plainville, Illinois between the Republican Wide Awakes para-military organization and armed Democratic supporters of Stephen A. Douglas.
• September 7 – The Lady Elgin is accidentally rammed and sunk in Lake Michigan; more than 400 drown.

October–December

• November 6 – U.S. presidential election: Abraham Lincoln beats John C. Breckinridge, Stephen A. Douglas, and John Bell and is elected as the 16th President of the United States, the first Republican to hold that office.
• December 18
  • Senator John J. Crittenden proposes the so-called Crittenden Compromise hoping to resolve the U.S. secession crisis.
  • Texas Rangers defeat a band of Comanches at the Battle of Pease River; Cynthia Ann Parker is recaptured and returned to her family after 24 years.
• December 20 – South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the United States.
• December 24 – South Carolina issues the "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union", analogous to the United States Declaration of Independence.

Undated

• Augustana College is founded in Chicago, Illinois, United States by Swedish immigrants. The college moves to Paxton, Illinois, in 1862, and to its eventual home in Rock Island, Illinois, in 1875.
• Sedalia, Missouri is incorporated.
• The American South has c. 4 million slaves.
• 1860–1900 – 14 million immigrants come to the United States.

Ongoing

• Secession crisis (1860–61)

Births

• January 25 – Charles Curtis, 31st Vice President of the United States from 1929 till 1933. United States Senator from Kansas from 1915 till 1929. (died 1936)
• March 8 – James A. Hemenway, United States Senator from Indiana from 1905 to 1909. (died 1923)
• May 15 – Ellen Axson Wilson, wife of Woodrow Wilson, First Lady of the United States, (died 1914)
• August 15 – Florence Harding, wife of Warren G. Harding, First Lady of the United States, (died 1924)
• October 12 – Chester I. Long, United States Senator from Kansas from 1903 till 1909. (died 1934)
• December 31 – John T. Thompson, United States Army officer best remembered as the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun (died 1940)

Deaths

• May 21 – Phineas Gage, improbable head injury survivor (born 1823)
• June 6 – Henry P. Haun, United States Senator from California from 1859 till 1860. (born 1815)
• July 1 – Charles Goodyear, inventor (born 1800)
• September 19 – Thomas D. Rice, actor and dancer (born 1808)
• October 3 – Rembrandt Peale, artist and museum keeper (born 1778)
• October 25 – James "Grizzly" Adams, mountain man and bear trainer (born 1812)

External links

• Media related to 1860 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons