1856 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government">Federal government of the United States">Federal Government

• President: Franklin Pierce
• Vice President: vacant
• Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Nathaniel P. Banks
• Congress: 34th

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

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 18 - The American Party convene in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to nominate their first Presidential candidate, former President Millard Fillmore.
• March 6 - Maryland Agricultural College 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.
• May 22 - Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beats Senator Charles Sumner 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. Sumner is unable to return to duty for 3 years while he recovered; 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: 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 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
• Third Seminole War

  Births

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

  Deaths

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