Documents in Year 1862                     

Links of Interest:

• Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth U.S. President

(1861-1865)

• Abraham Lincoln's Crossroads Online Game

This interactive website allows the viewer to help Lincoln make decisions.

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• Civil War:

Battle of the Ironclads

USS Monitor (Union) vs. CSS Virginia (Confederate) also known as the Merrimack before it was refitted as an ironclad. Three hour battle on 9 March 1862 resulting in a union victory with the Virginia retreating.

Matthew Brady, Civil War Photographer

Famous People of the Civil War Era

• Harper's Weekly Newspapers

The most popular newspaper during the Civil War. Links to the complete weekly paper.

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• Education:

Morrill Act established Land-grant Industrial colleges to meet the needs of farmers and laborers to improve their social and economic status. 65 new land-grant colleges were established including:
University of Maine (1865)
University of Illinois (1867)
University of West Virginia (1867)
University of California (1868)
Purdue University (1869)
University of Nebraska (1869)
Ohio University (1870)
University of Arkansas (1871)
Texas A&M University (1871)

Source: Foundations of American Education, Sixth Edition page 140-141 / L. Dean Webb, Arlene Metha. Published by Pearson Education. 2010  see 1865 for next event...

• Land:

  The Homestead Act

The Homestead Act, signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, turned over vast amounts of public land to private citizens.  This Masterpiece Theatre website focuses on Prairie Settlement.

• Literature: Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) writing for Virginia City Territorial Enterprise and adopted his pen name Mark Twain (steamboat slang for 12 feet of water).

  • Biography - learn about Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)

  • Memory Game - test what you remember about Mark Twain

  
  

• Native Americans 1862-64

Sioux uprising in Minnesota and North Dakota (Great Plains)
Viola, Herman I, North American Indians, Crown Publishers, New York: New York, 1996

• Technology:

  Transcontinental Railroad

In 1862 President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill authorizing funding for the Transcontinental Railroad from Omaha, Nebraska to Sacramento, CA by Union Pacific & Central Pacific Railroads. Work started after the Civil War in 1865.