Exploring the most important 55 months in American history
OTD 165 YEARS AGO: John C. Fremont, commanding the Federal Military Department of the West, issues controversial orders imposing martial law throughout Missouri and authorizing Federal troops to confiscate the property of disloyal Missourians, including slaves.
165 YEARS AGO: Political turmoil and military maneuvering continue in the bitterly divided state of Missouri.
Federal commanders accept the surrender of the last major organized Confederate force still in the field.
General Fitz John Porter stands trial, ostensibly for disobeying orders, but also because he symbolizes an era in the U.S. army that the Lincoln administration is trying to erase.
Federal forces effectively suppress the Sioux uprising of 1862 by driving much of the tribe out of Minnesota.
John Pope’s Federal Army of Virginia is absorbed into George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, and Pope is reassigned under protest.