1856 in the United States

Decades:	1830s ; 1840s ; 1850s ; 1860s ; 1870s ;
See also:	History of the United States (1849–1865) ; Timeline of the history of the United States (1820-1859) ; List of years in the United States ;

Last updated September 25, 2025

1856 in the United States included some significant events that pushed the nation closer towards civil war.

Incumbents

Federal government

President: Franklin Pierce (D-New Hampshire)
Vice President: vacant
Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
Speaker of the House of Representatives: Nathaniel P. Banks (American-Massachusetts)
Congress: 34th

Governors and lieutenant governors
Governors Governor of Alabama: John A. Winston (Democratic) Governor of Arkansas: Elias Nelson Conway (Democratic) Governor of California: John Bigler (Democratic) (until January 9), J. Neely Johnson (Know Nothing) (starting January 9) Governor of Connecticut: William T. Minor (Know Nothing) Governor of Delaware: Peter F. Causey (Know Nothing) Governor of Florida: James E. Broome (Democratic) Governor of Georgia: Herschel V. Johnson (Democratic) Governor of Illinois:Joel Aldrich Matteson (Democratic) Governor of Indiana: Joseph A. Wright (Democratic) Governor of Iowa: James W. Grimes (Whig) Governor of Kentucky: Charles S. Morehead (Know Nothing) Governor of Louisiana: Paul Octave Hébert (Democratic) (until January 22), Robert C. Wickliffe (Democratic) (starting January 22) Governor of Maine: Anson Morrill (Republican) (until January 2), Samuel Wells (Democratic) (starting January 2) Governor of Maryland: Thomas W. Ligon (Democratic) Governor of Massachusetts: Henry Gardner (Know Nothing) Governor of Michigan: Kinsley S. Bingham (Republican) Governor of Mississippi: John J. McRae (Democratic) Governor of Missouri: Sterling Price (Democratic) Governor of New Hampshire: Ralph Metcalf (Know Nothing) Governor of New Jersey: Rodman M. Price (Democratic) Governor of New York: Myron H. Clark (Whig) (until end of December 31) Governor of North Carolina: Thomas Bragg (Democratic) Governor of Ohio: William Medill (Democratic) (until January 14), Salmon P. Chase (Republican) (starting January 14) Governor of Pennsylvania: James Pollock (Whig) Governor of Rhode Island: William W. Hoppin (Whig) Governor of South Carolina: James Hopkins Adams (Democratic) (until December 9), Robert Francis Withers Allston (Democratic) (starting December 9) Governor of Tennessee: Andrew Johnson (Democratic) Governor of Texas: Elisha M. Pease (Democratic) Governor of Vermont: Stephen Royce (Whig)/(Republican) (until October 10), Ryland Fletcher (Republican) (starting October 10) Governor of Virginia: Joseph Johnson (Democratic) (until January 1), Henry A. Wise (Democratic) (starting January 1) Governor of Wisconsin: until March 21: William A. Barstow (Democratic) March 21-March 25: Arthur MacArthur, Sr. (Democratic) starting March 25: Coles Bashford (Republican) Lieutenant governors Lieutenant Governor of California: Samuel Purdy (Democratic) (until January 9), Robert M. Anderson (Know Nothing) (starting January 9) Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: William Field (Free Soil) (until month and day unknown), Albert Day (Free Soil) (starting month and day unknown) Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Gustavus Koerner (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Ashbel P. Willard (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: James Greene Hardy (Know Nothing) (until month and day unknown), vacant (starting month and day unknown) Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: until January 22: Robert C. Wickliffe (Democratic) January 22-month and day unknown: Charles Homer Mouton (Democratic) starting month and day unknown: William F. Griffin (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Simon Brown (political party unknown) (until month and day unknown), Henry W. Benchley (political party unknown) (starting month and day unknown) Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: George Coe (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: vacant Lieutenant Governor of New York: Henry Jarvis Raymond (Whig) (until end of December 31) Lieutenant Governor of Ohio: James Myers (Democratic) (until January 14), Thomas H. Ford (Democratic) (starting January 14) Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Anderson C. Rose (political party unknown) (until month and day unknown), Nicholas Brown III (political party unknown) (starting month and day unknown) Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Richard de Treville (Democratic) (until December 9), Gabriel Cannon (Democratic) (starting December 9) Lieutenant Governor of Texas: Hardin Richard Runnels (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Ryland Fletcher (Republican) (until October 10), James M. Slade (Republican) (starting October 10) Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: Shelton Leake (Democratic) (until January 1), Elisha W. McComas (political party unknown) (starting January 1) Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: James T. Lewis (Republican) (until January 7), Arthur MacArthur, Sr. (Democratic) (starting January 7)

Events

January–March

January 24 – U.S. President Franklin Pierce declares the new Free-State Topeka government in Bleeding Kansas to be in rebellion.
January 26 – Puget Sound War/Yakima War: Battle of Seattle – Marines from the USS Decatur drive off American Indian attackers after an all day battle with settlers.
February – The Tintic War breaks out in Utah.
February 1 – Auburn University is first chartered as the East Alabama Male College.
February 2 – Dallas, Texas is incorporated as a city.
February 12 – American clipper ships Driver and Ocean Queen leave Liverpool and London respectively; both will be lost without trace in the Atlantic, perhaps due to ice, killing 374 and 123 respectively.^[1]
February 18 – The American Party (Know-Nothings) convene in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to nominate their first presidential candidate, former President Millard Fillmore.
March 6 – Maryland Agricultural College (present-day University of Maryland, College Park) is chartered.
March 9 – National Fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon is founded at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
April 10 – The Theta Chi fraternity is founded at Norwich University.

April–June

May 16 – The Vigilance Committee is founded in San Francisco, California. It lynches two gangsters, arrests most Democratic Party officials and disbands itself on August 18.
May 21 – Bleeding Kansas: Lawrence, Kansas is captured and burned by pro-slavery forces (the "Sacking of Lawrence").
May 22 – Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beats Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane in the hall of the United States Senate, for a speech Sumner had made attacking Southerners who sympathized with the pro-slavery violence in Kansas ("Bleeding Kansas"). Sumner is unable to return to duty for 3 years while he recovers; Brooks becomes a hero across the South.
May 24 – Pottawatomie Massacre: A group of followers of radical abolitionist John Brown kill 5 pro-slavery supporters in Franklin County, Kansas.
June 2 – Bleeding Kansas: Battle of Black Jack – Anti-slavery forces, led by John Brown, defeat pro-slavery forces.
June 6 – At the Democratic National Convention, President Franklin Pierce is denied re-nomination for the November presidential election.
June 9 – 500 Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa and head west for Salt Lake City, Utah, carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts.

July–September

July 17: The Great Train Wreck of 1856. GreatTrainWreck.jpg — July 17: The Great Train Wreck of 1856.

July 17 – The Great Train Wreck of 1856: Two trains collide near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania killing at least 59 and injuring at least 100.
August 10 – 1856 Last Island hurricane: A hurricane destroys Last Island, Louisiana, leaving at least 200 dead. The whole island is broken up into smaller islands by the storm.
August 21 – The Charter Oak in Hartford, Connecticut, falls to the ground during a storm
August 23 – Kate Warne, the first female private detective, begins to work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency.
August 30
- Bleeding Kansas: Battle of Osawatomie – Pro-slavery forces defeat anti-slavery forces.
- Chickasaw Constitution signed; establishes new Chickasaw Nation in Indian Territory.
September 1 – Seton Hall University is founded by Archdiocese of Newark Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley, a cousin of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and nephew of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton.

October–December

November 4 – U.S. presidential election, 1856: Democrat James Buchanan defeats former President Millard Fillmore, representing a coalition of "Know-Nothings" and Whigs, and John C. Frémont of the fledgling Republican Party, to become the 15th president of the United States.
November 17 – American Old West: On the Sonoita River in present-day southern Arizona, the United States Army establishes Fort Buchanan in order to help control new land acquired in the Gadsden Purchase.
November 21 – Niagara University is founded in Niagara Falls, New York.

Ongoing

Bleeding Kansas (1854–1860)
Third Seminole War (1855–1858)

Births

January 7 – Charles Harold Davis, landscape painter (died 1933)
January 8 – Elizabeth Taylor, painter and traveler (died 1932)
January 9 – Lizette Woodworth Reese, poet (died 1935)^[2]
January 12 – John Singer Sargent, painter (born in Tuscany; died 1925 in the United Kingdom)
February 2 – Frederick William Vanderbilt, railroad magnate (died 1938)
March 20 – Frederick Winslow Taylor, inventor and efficiency expert (died 1915)
April 5 – Booker T. Washington, educator (died 1915)
April 23 – Granville T. Woods, African American inventor (died 1910)
March 8 – Colin Campbell Cooper, impressionist painter (died 1937)
May 6 – Robert Peary, Arctic explorer (died 1920)
May 15 – L. Frank Baum, children's writer (The Wizard of Oz) (died 1919)^[3]
May 26 – George Templeton Strong, composer (died 1948 in Switzerland)
July 9/10 – Nikola Tesla inventor, genius (died in 1947 in New York, United States)
July 11 – Georgiana Drew, stage actress (died 1893)
July 24 – Franklin Ware Mann, inventor (died 1916)
July 25 – Charles Major, novelist and lawyer (died 1913)
August 15 – Charles E. Townsend, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1911 to 1923 (died 1924)
September 3 – Louis Sullivan, architect, "father of skyscrapers" (died 1924)
September 5
- William B. McKinley, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1921 to 1926 (died 1926)
- Thomas E. Watson, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1921 to 1922 (died 1922)
September 9 – Richard R. Kenney, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1897 to 1901 (died 1931)
October 7 – Moses Fleetwood Walker, baseball pitcher and Black nationalist (died 1924)
October 10 – George McClellan, U.S. Representative from New York (died 1927)
October 28 – Anna Elizabeth Klumpke, portrait and genre painter (died 1942)
October 30 – Charles Leroux, balloonist and parachutist (died 1889)
November 6 – Jefferson David Chalfant, trompe-l'œil painter (died 1931)
November 13 – Louis Brandeis, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (died 1941)
November 14 – Madeleine Lemoyne Ellicott, suffragette (died 1945)
November 16 – Carrie Babcock Sherman, wife of James S. Sherman, Second Lady of the United States (died 1931)
November 17 – Thomas Taggart, U.S. Senator from Indiana in 1916 (died 1929)
November 21 – William Emerson Ritter, biologist (died 1944)
November 22 – Heber J. Grant, seventh president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (died 1945)
December 22 – Frank B. Kellogg, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1917 to 1923 (died 1937)
December 23 – James Buchanan Duke, tobacco and electric power industrialist (born 1925)
December 28
- Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921 (died 1924)
- Sarah Platt-Decker, née Chase, suffragist (died 1912)

Deaths

January 1 – John M. Berrien, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1841 to 1852 (born 1781)
January 16 – Thaddeus William Harris, naturalist (born 1795)
April 19 – Thomas Rogers, railroad locomotive builder (born 1792)
April 20 – Robert L. Stevens, president of Camden and Amboy Railroad (born 1787)
April 26 – George Troup, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1816 to 1818 and 1829 to 1833 (born 1780)
May 5 – William Crosby Dawson, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1849 to 1855 (born 1798)
May 31 – John Milton Niles, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1835 to 1839 and 1843 to 1849 (born 1787)
July 9
- Alfred Cuthbert, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1835 to 1843 (born 1785)
- James Strang, Mormon splinter group leader (born 1813)
September 7 – Almon W. Babbitt, Mormon pioneer and first secretary/treasurer of Utah Territory (born 1812)
October 19 – William Sprague III, politician from Rhode Island (born 1799)
November 9 – John M. Clayton, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1829 to 1836, 1845 to 1849 and 1853 to 1856 (born 1796)

References

↑ "Missing Ships – The Gales of the Past Winter - A Melancholy Catalogue". The New York Herald . June 3, 1856. p. 12. Retrieved June 18, 2019– via Library of Congress.
↑ "Lizette Woodworth Reese | American poet". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved April 4, 2020.
↑ Greasley, Philip A. (May 30, 2001). Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, Volume 1: The Authors. Indiana University Press. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-253-10841-8.

External links

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[1] "Missing Ships – The Gales of the Past Winter - A Melancholy Catalogue". The New York Herald . June 3, 1856. p. 12. Retrieved June 18, 2019– via Library of Congress.

[2] "Lizette Woodworth Reese | American poet". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved April 4, 2020.

[3] Greasley, Philip A. (May 30, 2001). Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, Volume 1: The Authors. Indiana University Press. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-253-10841-8.

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