← 1859 1858 1857 1860 in the United States → 1861 1862 1863
Decades:	1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s
See also:	History of the United States (1849–1865) Timeline of the history of the United States (1860-1899) List of years in the United States

Events from the year1860 in the United States.

• President:James Buchanan (D-Pennsylvania)
• Vice President:John C. Breckinridge (D-Kentucky)
• Chief Justice:Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives:William Pennington (R-New Jersey)
• Congress:36th

• January 10 – ThePemberton Mill collapses inLawrence, Massachusetts, killing at least 77 workers.
• February 22 – TheNew England Shoemakers Strike of 1860 begins inLynn, Massachusetts. The strike spreads throughoutNew England, and eventually involves 20,000 workers.
• February 27 –Abraham Lincoln gives hisCooper Union speech inNew York City.
• March 6 – While campaigning for thepresidency,Abraham Lincoln makes a speech defending theright to strike.
• March 9 – The firstJapanese ambassadors to the United States arrive inSan Francisco.

• April 3 – ThePony Express begins its first run fromSaint Joseph, Missouri toSacramento, California.
• May 1 – A Chondrite typemeteorite falls to earth inMuskingum County,Ohio near the town ofNew Concord.
• May 6 – ThePaiute War begins asNorthern Paiutes raidedWilliams Station inUtah Territory.
• May 9 – The U.S.Constitutional Union Party holds its convention and nominatesJohn Bell forPresident of the United States.
• May 12 –Paiute War –First Battle of Pyramid Lake: American vigilantes seek out the Paiutes and are soundly defeated. Disorganized and outnumbered, nearly all of the vigilantes are killed or wounded.
• May 18 –Abraham Lincoln is selected as the U.S. presidential candidate for theRepublican Party.
• June 2–4 –Paiute War –Second Battle of Pyramid Lake: A well-organized force of militia and U.S. Army soldiers seek out the Paiutes and defeat them in the final battle of the war.

• August – ThePaiute War ends with an informal ceasefire.
• August 25 – The Stone's Prairie Riot takes place inPayson andPlainville,Illinois between the RepublicanWide Awakes and armed Democratic supporters ofStephen A. Douglas.
• September 7 – TheLady Elgin is accidentally rammed and sunk inLake Michigan; more than 400 drown.

• October 15 – 11-year-old Grace Bedell writes toAbraham Lincoln telling him to grow a beard.
• November 6 –U.S. presidential election:Abraham Lincoln beatsJohn C. Breckinridge,Stephen A. Douglas, andJohn Bell and is elected as the 16thpresident of the United States, the firstRepublican to hold that office.
• December 18
  • SenatorJohn J. Crittenden proposes the so-calledCrittenden Compromise hoping to resolve theU.S. secession crisis.
  • Texas Rangers defeat a band ofComanches at theBattle of Pease River;Cynthia Ann Parker is recaptured and returned to her family after 24 years.
• December 20 –South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the United States.
• December 24 –South Carolina issues the "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union", analogous to theUnited States Declaration of Independence.

• Augustana College is founded inChicago, Illinois, United States bySwedish immigrants. The college moves toPaxton,Illinois, in 1862, and to its eventual home in Rock Island, Illinois, in 1875.
• Sedalia, Missouri is incorporated.
• TheAmerican South has c. 4 million slaves.
• 1860–1900 – 14 millionimmigrants come to the United States.

• Secession crisis (1860–61)

• January 1 –Dan Katchongva, tribal leader and activist (died1972)
• January 17 –Charles K. French, actor, film director, and screenwriter (died1952)
• January 25 –Charles Curtis, 31stvice president of the United States from 1929 to 1933; U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1915 to 1929 (died1936)
• February 28 –Carl Georg Barth, mathematician and mechanical engineer (died1939)
• February 29 –Herman Hollerith, pioneer of automated data processing (died1929)
• March 2 –Susanna M. Salter, first woman mayor in the U.S. (died 1961)
• March 5 –Sam Thompson, baseball player (died1922)
• March 8 –James A. Hemenway, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1905 to 1909 (died1923)
• March 11 –Thomas Hastings, architect (died1929)
• March 19 –William Jennings Bryan, politician (died1925)
• March 27 –Frank Frost Abbott, classical scholar (died1924)
• April 7 –Will Keith Kellogg, industrialist, founder of theKellogg Company (died1951)
• May 15 –Ellen Axson Wilson,First Lady of the United States from 1913 to 1914 as wife ofWoodrow Wilson (died1914)
• May 16 –Herman Webster Mudgett, serial killer (d.1896)
• June 22 –Tom O'Brien, baseball player (died1921)
• July 3 –Charlotte Perkins Gilman, feminist novelist (died1935)
• July 4 –Idah McGlone Gibson, journalist (died1933)
• July 14 –Owen Wister, Western fiction writer and historian (died1938)
• July 19 –Lizzie Borden, murder suspect (died1927)
• August 8 –Eliza Putnam Heaton, journalist and editor (died1919)
• August 9 –Maude Gillette Phillips, author and educator (d. unknown)
• August 13 –Annie Oakley, West show performer (died1926)
• August 15
  • Henrietta Vinton Davis, elocutionist, dramatist and impersonator (died1941)
  • Florence Harding, née Kling, First Lady of the United States from 1921 to 1923 as wife ofWarren G. Harding (died1924)
• September 5 –Andrew Volstead, politician (died1947)
• September 6 –Jane Addams, social worker, recipient of theNobel Peace Prize in 1931 (died1935)
• September 7 – "Grandma Moses", born Anna Mary Robertson, folk painter (died1961)
• September 13 –John J. Pershing, general (died1948)
• October –William Edward White, African American baseball player (died1937)
• October 12 –Chester I. Long, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1903 to 1909 (died1934)
• October 23 –Molly Elliot Seawell, historian (died1916)
• October 31 –Juliette Gordon Low, founder of Girl Scouts (died1927)
• November 2 –Soapy Smith, con artist and gangster (shot1898)
• December 4 –Lillian Russell, singer and actress (died 1922)
• December 15 –Abner Powell,Major league baseball player (died1953)
• December 18 –Edward MacDowell, pianist and composer (died1908)
• December 28 –Harry B. Smith, songwriter (died1936)
• December 31
  • Joseph S. Cullinan, industrialist, founder ofTexaco (died 1937)
  • John T. Thompson, U.S. Army officer, inventor of theThompson submachine gun (died1940)

• January 5 –John Neumann, first United States bishop to be canonized (born1811)
• January 13 –William Mason, politician (born1786)
• January 18 –John Nelson, lawyer (born1791)
• February 25 –Chauncey Allen Goodrich, lexicographer (born1790)
• April 6 –James Kirke Paulding, writer andUnited States Secretary of the Navy (born1778)
• May 9 –Samuel Griswold Goodrich (Peter Parley), children's author (born1793)
• May 10 –Theodore Parker, preacher, Transcendentalist and abolitionist (born1810)
• May 21 –Phineas Gage, improbable head injury survivor (born1823)
• May 31 –Peter Vivian Daniel, Associate Justice of theSupreme Court from 1841 to 1860 (born1784)
• June 6 –Henry P. Haun, U.S. Senator from California from 1859 to 1860 (born1815)
• July 1 –Charles Goodyear, inventor (born1800)
• September 12 –William Walker, filibuster, briefly President ofNicaragua, executed (born1824)
• September 19 –Thomas D. Rice, actor and dancer (born1808)
• September 29 –Chapin A. Harris, physician and dentist (born1806)
• October 3 –Rembrandt Peale, portrait painter and museum keeper (born1778)
• October 25 –James "Grizzly" Adams, mountain man and bear trainer (born1812)

• Timeline of United States history (1860–1899)

• Media related to1860 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons

• 1860 in the United States
• 1860s in the United States
• 1860 by country
• 1860 in North America
• Years of the 19th century in the United States

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