1865

Society

1865. The American Civil War ends. President Lincoln is assassinated and a 12-year era of Reconstruction begins in the South with state legislatures run by "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags."

1865. Gen. Lee surrenders to Gen. Grant, April 9, at Appomattox Courthouse, Va. and the war is over.

1865. The Union has lost 360,222 men (110,000 in battle), the Confederacy 258,000 (94,000 in battle) with at least 471,427 wounded on both sides.

1865. President Lincoln is assassinated April 14 while attending a performance at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., and is succeeded by his vice-president Andrew Johnson.

1865. The Ku Klux Klan organized at Pulaski, Tenn., is a secret social club of young men who hope to recapture the comradeship and excitement of the war. Their curious uniform is soon discovered to terrorize superstitious blacks. A majority of Southern whites will join in the next few years as the KKK tries to return local and state government to white, Democratic party control.

1865. The commandant of the Confederate prison camp at Andersonville, Ga., is convicted of "murder, in violation of the laws and customs of war" and hanged November 10 in Washington.

1865. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits slavery or any other denial of liberty "without due process of law."

1865. The Salvation Army has its beginnings in a London mission founded by itinerant English religious revivalist William Booth.

1865. Austrian botanist Gregor Mendel elucidates natural laws of heredity.

1865. Reuters News Service conveys news of President Lincoln's assassination to Europe a week ahead of the competition.

1865. The first U.S. train robbery occurs May 5.

Literature

Atalanta in Calydon. Algernon Charles Swinburne. British. 1865. Play. Based on the Greek legend of Atalanta and the Calydonian boar hunt. She is a swift runner who will marry only someone swifter than she. She is delayed when her suitor drops golden apples which she stops to pick up. Hymn to Artemis.

"O Captain! My Captain!" Walt Whitman. American. 1865. Poetry. Commemorates the death of Abraham Lincoln.

"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." Mark Twain. American. 1865. Story. Dose of quail shot keeps Smiley's frog, Dan'l Webster, from outjumping the stranger's frog.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll. British. 1865. Story. Everything happens with fantastic illogicality. White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, Mock Turtle, the Mad Hatter, etc.

"Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates." Mary Mapes Dodge. American. 1865. Story. Hero is Dutch boy. Interesting picture of life in Holland. Children's story.

"Commemoration Ode." James Russell Lowell. American. 1865. Poetry. In honor of the Harvard students who had died in the Civil War. Added lines in honor of Lincoln.

Rhoda Fleming. George Meredith. British. 1865. Novel. Sister defends guilty sister, but then insists on her marriage on learning of her lost innocence.