1865 CE

The first speed limit is introduced in Britain: 2 mph in town and 4 mph in the country. The 6.3 MLa Santa Cruz Mountains earthquake shakes the Central Coast and San Francisco Bay Area of California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), causing $500,000 in damage. Convention between France, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland forming the Latin Monetary Union signed in Paris.

In the 1860s, the 19th century.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 31 – The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (conditional prohibition of slavery and involuntary servitude) passes narrowly, in the House of Representatives.source
  • February 6 – The municipal administration of Finland is established.source
  • February 22 – Tennessee adopts a new constitution that abolishes slavery.source
  • March 3 – The U.S. Congress authorizes formation of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands.source
  • May 1 – The Treaty of the Triple Alliance of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay against Paraguay is formally signed, following the outbreak of the Paraguayan War.source
  • May 1 – Treaty of the Triple AllianceArgentinasource
  • May 5 – Jefferson Davis meets with his Confederate Cabinet (14 officials) for the last time, in Washington, Georgia, and the Confederate Government is officially dissolved.source
  • 1 July – Stamp duty is introduced in New South Wales with the Stamp Duties Act of 1865.Australiasource
  • 8 July - Legislative election.Portugalsource
  • July 26 – The New Zealand Parliament first meets in Wellington on a permanent basis, making it de facto the national capital.source
  • July 26 – Sir John Thomas becomes acting Lieutenant-governor of the Colony of Natal.South Africasource
  • August 16 – The Dominican Republic regains independence from Spain.source
  • October 25 – Florida drafts its constitution in Tallahassee.source
  • November 11 – Duar War between Britain and Bhutan ends with the Treaty of Sinchula, in which Bhutan cedes control of its southern passes to Britain in return for an annual subsidy.source
  • December 17 – Leopold II becomes King of the Belgians, following the death (on December 10) of his father, King Leopold I.source
  • December 18 – Secretary of State William H. Seward declares the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution ratified by three-quarters of the states, including those in secession. As of December 6, slavery is legally outlawed in the last two slave states of Kentucky and Delaware, and the remaining 45,000 slaves are freed.source
  • 23 December — Convention between France, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland forming the Latin Monetary Union signed in Paris.Belgiumsource
  • Prince Gong steps down from regency but continues being head of the Grand CouncilChinasource
  • Indian Forest Acts, 1865 and 1878 extended the British Colonial claims over forests in India.Indiasource
  • The Capital of New Zealand is moved from Auckland to Wellington.New Zealandsource

Conflict & Security

  • January 13 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Fort Fisher – Union forces launch a major amphibious assault against the last seaport held by the Confederates, Fort Fisher, North Carolina.source
  • February 3 – American Civil War: Hampton Roads Conference: Union and Confederate leaders discuss peace terms.source
  • March 7 – New Brunswick rejects a Confederation scheme.Canadasource
  • March 19–21 – American Civil War : Battle of Bentonville: Union troops compel Confederate forces to retreat from Four Oaks, North Carolina.source
  • March 25 – American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces capture Fort Stedman from the Union, although it is retaken the same day. Lee's army suffers heavy casualties: about 2,900, including 1,000 captured in the Union counterattack. Confederate positions are weakened. After the battle, Lee's defeat is only a matter of time.source
  • April 1 – American Civil War – Battle of Five Forks: In Petersburg, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee begins his final offensive.source
  • 4 April – Opposition parties accuse government of breaching Belgian neutrality by involving the country in the Second French intervention in Mexico.Belgiumsource
  • April 9 – American Civil War: Confederate States Army General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Union Army General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, effectively ending the war.source
  • April 14 – Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: President of the United States Abraham Lincoln is shot while attending an evening performance of the farce Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., by actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth.source
  • April 14 – United States Secretary of State William H. Seward and his family are attacked in his home, by Lewis Powell.source
  • April 18 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his entire cabinet arrive in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a contingent of 1,000 soldiers.source
  • April 26 – American Civil War: Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston surrenders to Union Major General William Tecumseh Sherman, at Durham Station, North Carolina.source
  • May 4 – American Civil War: Lieutenant General Richard Taylor, commanding all Confederate forces in Alabama, Mississippi, and eastern Louisiana, surrenders his forces to Union General Edward Canby at Citronelle, Alabama, effectively ending all Confederate resistance east of the Mississippi River.source
  • May 10 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is captured by the Union Army near Irwinville, Georgia.source
  • May 12–13 – American Civil War – Battle of Palmito Ranch: In far south Texas, more than a month after Confederate General Lee's surrender, the last land battle of the civil war with casualties, ends with a Confederate victory.source
  • May 29 – American Civil War: President of the United States Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation of general amnesty for most citizens of the former Confederacy.source
  • June 2 – American Civil War: Confederate forces west of the Mississippi River under General Edmund Kirby Smith surrender at Galveston, Texas, under terms negotiated on May 26, becoming the last to do so.source
  • June 11 – Battle of the Riachuelo: The Brazilian Navy squadron defeats the Paraguayan Navy.source
  • June 19 – American Civil War: Union Major General Gordon Granger lands at Galveston, Texas, and informs the people of Texas of the Emancipation Proclamation (an event celebrated in modern times each year as Juneteenth).source
  • June 23 – American Civil War: At Fort Towson in Oklahoma Territory, Confederate General Stand Watie, a Cherokee Indian, surrenders the last significant Rebel army.source
  • July 7 – Following Abraham Lincoln's assassination on April 14, the four conspirators condemned to death during the trial are hanged, including David Herold, George Atzerodt, Lewis Powell and Mary Surratt. Her son, John Surratt, escapes execution by fleeing to Canada, and ultimately to Egypt.source
  • War breaks out for the second time between the Orange Free State and Basothos.South Africasource
  • October 11 – Morant Bay rebellion: Paul Bogle leads hundreds of black men and women in a march in Jamaica; the rebellion is brutally suppressed by the British governor Edward John Eyre with 400 executed.source
  • November 6 – American Civil War: The CSS Shenandoah, last remnant of the Confederate States of America and its military, surrenders in Liverpool after fleeing westward from the Pacific.source
  • 6 November – American Civil War: Surrender to HMS Donegal at Liverpool of the Confederate commerce raider CSS Shenandoah.United Kingdomsource
  • November 10 – Captain Henry Wirz, Confederate superintendent of Andersonville Prison (Camp Sumter) is hanged, becoming the second of two combatants, and only serving regular soldier, to be executed for war crimes committed during the American Civil War.source
  • November 17 – Chincha Islands War: Action of 17 November 1865 – A Spanish gunboat is captured by the Chilean tugboat Independencia off Tomé, in the Bay of Concepción, Chile.source
  • November 26 – Chincha Islands War: Battle of Papudo – The Spanish ship Covadonga is captured by the Chileans and the Peruvians, north of Valparaíso, Chile.source
  • December 24 – The Ku Klux Klan is formed by six Confederate Army veterans, with support of the Democratic Party, in Pulaski, Tennessee, to resist Reconstruction and intimidate "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags", as well as to repress the freed slaves.United Statessource
  • Battle of Fujian, Qing forces clear remnants of Taiping loyalistsChinasource
  • Bombay Castle wall was demolishedIndiasource
  • Russian forces capture the Central Asian city of Tashkent, then part of the Khanate of Kokand. At the time, Tashkent had about 70,000 inhabitants and was a major centre of trade with Russia.Russiasource

Exploration & Expansion

  • 16 February – La Grange expedition led by Maitland Brown and including David Francisco and Lockier Burges leaves Fremantle to search for three settlers who had failed to return from an earlier exploring expedition. The three men were eventually found dead, having been speared and clubbed to death by Aboriginal Australians, apparently in their sleep.Australiasource
  • 9 May – International Exhibition of Arts and Manufactures opens in Dublin.Irelandsource
  • May 17 – French missionary Father Armand David first observes Père David's deer in Peking, China.source
  • May 28 – The Mimosa sets sail with emigrants from Wales for Patagonia.source
  • June 25 – James Hudson Taylor founds the China Inland Mission at Brighton, England.source
  • July 14 – First ascent of the Matterhorn: The summit of the Matterhorn in the Alps is reached for the first time, by a party of 7 led by the Englishman Edward Whymper; 4 die in a fall during the descent.source
  • 14 July – a party led by Edward Whymper makes the first ascent of the Matterhorn.United Kingdomsource
  • July 27 – Welsh settlers arrive in Argentina at Chubut Valley.source
  • 21 October — Opening of Howells (department store) in Cardiff as a drapery.Walessource
  • 3 November - Opening of the first Printemps department store, in Paris.Francesource
  • 2–7 September – A deputation from Sleswig visits Copenhagen.Denmarksource
  • The 1865 International Exhibition was held in PortoPortugalsource
  • The Rossander Courses for women starts in Stockholm.Swedensource

Religion & Belief

  • 1 January - The French government suppresses promulgation of the Papal "Syllabus of Errors" from the pulpit.Francesource
  • 1 May – Henricus Franciscus Bracq consecrated as bishop of GhentBelgiumsource
  • 4 June – the lyrics of the hymn "Onward, Christian Soldiers", written by Sabine Baring-Gould as "Hymn for Procession with Cross and Banners", are first sung by children processing to St Peter's Church, Horbury, in the West Riding of Yorkshire.United Kingdomsource
  • July 2 – The Christian Mission, later renamed The Salvation Army, is founded in Whitechapel, London, by William and Catherine Booth.source
  • 2 July – the Christian Mission, later renamed The Salvation Army, is founded in Whitechapel, London by William and Catherine Booth.United Kingdomsource
  • The church at Hruni was built.Icelandsource
  • Methodist College Belfast founded by the church; it will open to pupils in 1868.Irelandsource
  • John Evans (I. D. Ffraid) — Coll Gwynfa (translation of Milton's Paradise Lost)Walessource
  • Francis Kilvert becomes curate of Clyro in Radnorshire.Walessource

Economy & Finance

  • January 4 – The New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad near Wall Street, in New York City.source
  • 3 March – Thomas Sutherland founds the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.Scotlandsource
  • 3 March – Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, founded by Scottish businessman Thomas Sutherland, begins operation in British Hong Kong.United Kingdomsource
  • May 12 – Electric equipment and mobile brand Nokia founded in Tampere, Finland.source
  • 21 August — Law on tariffs and customs reform published.Belgiumsource
  • Economic depression hits South Africa.South Africasource
  • December 11 – The United States Congress creates the United States House Committee on Appropriations and the Committee on Banking and Commerce, reducing the tasks of the House Committee on Ways and Means.source
  • December 11 – The U.S. Congress creates the House Appropriations Committee and the Committee on Banking and Commerce, reducing the tasks of the Committee on Ways and Means.United Statessource
  • The National Temperance Society and Publishing House is founded by James Black in the U.S.source
  • Arnott's Biscuits is founded by Scottish baker William Arnott.Australiasource
  • Shapoorji Pallonji Group, Mumbai based business conglomerate, was foundedIndiasource
  • P&O Bank purchased Allahabad BankIndiasource

Technology & Infrastructure

  • 5 January — The Festiniog Railway officially opens to passengers, the first narrow gauge railway in the British Isles to do so.Walessource
  • February 21 – John Deere receives a United States patent for ploughs.source
  • March – Hamm's Brewery opens in St. Paul, Minnesota.source
  • April 6 – German chemicals producer Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik (BASF) is founded in Mannheim.source
  • April 21 – German chemicals producer BASF moves its headquarters and factories from Mannheim, to the Hemshof District of Ludwigshafen.source
  • May 17 – The International Telegraph Union is founded.source
  • July 5 – The first speed limit is introduced in Britain: 2 mph in town and 4 mph in the country.source
  • July 5 – The U.S. Secret Service is founded.source
  • July 23 – The SS Great Eastern departs on a voyage to lay a transatlantic telegraph cable.source
  • July 31 – The first narrow gauge mainline railway in the world opens at Grandchester, Australia.source
  • 31 July – Queensland Railways opens the first section of track from Ipswich to Bigge's Camp, the first narrow gauge mainline railway in the world.Australiasource
  • 23 September – Brussels city council approves plans for the covering of the Senne.Belgiumsource
  • November: The Grey River Argus begins publication in Greymouth. It published three times a week until becoming daily in 1871. The paper folded in 1966.New Zealandsource
  • The General German Cigar Workers Society ("Allgemeiner Deutsche Cigarrenarbeiter-Verein"), established in Leipzig in 1865, was the first centrally organized union in Germany.Germanysource
  • India Office Site & Approaches ActIndiasource
  • The Natal Railway Company obtains a 0-4-0 saddle-tank locomotive from Kitson and Company. The Natal Railway's second locomotive is named Durban.South Africasource
  • The first issue of the Jönköpings-Posten.Swedensource

Science & Discovery

  • February 8 & March 8 – Gregor Mendel reads his paper on Experiments on Plant Hybridization at two meetings of the Natural History Society of Brünn in Moravia, subsequently taken to be the origin of the theory of Mendelian inheritance.source
  • June 26 – Jumbo, a young male African elephant, arrives at London Zoo and becomes a popular attraction.source
  • 26 June – Jumbo, a young male African elephant, arrives at London Zoo and becomes a popular attraction.United Kingdomsource
  • June–August – English polymath Francis Galton first describes eugenics.source
  • June–August – Francis Galton formulates eugenics.United Kingdomsource
  • 30 August: The New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian publishes its last issue. It began in 1844.New Zealandsource
  • September – John Henry Walsh (writing as 'Stonehenge' in the magazine The Field) gives the first definition of a dog breed standard (for the pointer) based on physical form.United Kingdomsource
  • The New Zealand Exhibition in Dunedin runs from 12 January until 6 May 1865.New Zealandsource
  • John Jones (Mathetes) — Pregeth i Fyfyrwyr Coleg Hwlffordd ...Walessource

Health & Medicine

  • 21 February – A Royal Commission into the origin and nature of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (a cattle disease) presents its third and final report to the Parliament of Victoria.Australiasource
  • 26 May – 1863–75 cholera pandemic caused 45,000 fatalities in Belgium in 1865.Belgiumsource
  • May – national outbreak of rinderpest in British cattle first appears in Islington; it continues until September 1867.United Kingdomsource
  • 5 July – Speed limit in Britain originally introduced by the Locomotive Act 1861 is reduced by the Locomotives Act 1865 – becoming 2 mph in town and 4 mph in the country.United Kingdomsource
  • 28 July – English general practitioner Edward William Pritchard becomes the last person publicly hanged in Glasgow (on Glasgow Green), for poisoning his wife and mother-in-law in the city.Scotlandsource
  • 9 September — First of fifteen deaths in the only outbreak of yellow fever ever to occur in Britain, at Swansea.Walessource
  • Louis Melsens receives Montyon Prize for his work on the use of potassium iodide to treat mercury poisoning and lead poisoning.Belgiumsource
  • Joseph Lister begins to experiment with antiseptic surgery in Glasgow using carbolic acid.Scotlandsource

Crime & Justice

  • 8 April – Bushranger Dan Morgan is shot dead by a stockman during a police siege at Wangaratta, Victoria.Australiasource
  • April 26 – Union cavalry corner John Wilkes Booth in a Virginia barn, and cavalryman Boston Corbett fatally shoots the assassin.source
  • May 5 – In North Bend, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati), the first train robbery in the country takes place.source
  • 5 May – Bushranger Ben Hall is shot dead by police at Goobang Creek in New South Wales.Australiasource
  • 31 May – 14 June – It is possible for the public to see Constantin Hansen's monumental painting of The Danish Constituent Assembly in Alfred Hage's home in the Harsdorff House on Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen. The entrance fee goes to veterans of the Second Schleswig War.Denmarksource
  • 5 July – Legal case of St Helen's Smelting Co v Tipping decided in the House of Lords: a landowner is entitled to recover damages for harm done to his trees by fumes from a copper smelter.United Kingdomsource
  • 17 July — South Wales Cricket Club travels to Gravesend to play the Gentlemen of Kent.Walessource
  • July 21 – Wild Bill Hickok – Davis Tutt shootout: In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots "Little Dave" Davis Tutt dead over a poker debt, in what is regarded as the first true western fast draw showdown.source
  • September 26 – Champ Ferguson becomes the first person (and one of only two) to be convicted of war crimes for actions taken during the American Civil War, found guilty by a U.S. Army tribunal on 23 charges, arising from the murder of 53 people. He is hanged on October 20, two days after the conviction of Henry Wirz for war crimes.source
  • September 26 – Champ Ferguson becomes the first of two combatants to be convicted of war crimes for actions taken during the American Civil War, found guilty by a U.S. Army tribunal on 23 charges arising from the murder of 53 people as a Confederate guerilla. He is hanged on October 20, two days after the conviction of Henry Wirz.United Statessource
  • 14 November – Jules Bara succeeds Victor Tesch as Minister of Justice.Belgiumsource
  • December 24 – Jonathan Shank and Barry Ownby form the Ku Klux Klan in the American South, to resist Reconstruction and intimidate carpetbaggers and scalawags, as well as to repress the freedpeople.source
  • Augustus Burke paints Connemara Girl.Irelandsource

Disasters & Accidents

  • February 17 – American Civil War: Columbia, South Carolina burns as Confederate forces flee from advancing Union forces.United Statessource
  • February – American Civil War: Columbia, South Carolina burns, as Confederate forces flee from advancing Union forces.source
  • April 27 – The steamboat Sultana, carrying 2,300 passengers, explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1,800, mostly Union survivors of the Andersonville Prison.source
  • April 27 – The steamboat Sultana, carrying 2,300 passengers (and news of Lincoln's assassination), explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1,800, mostly Union survivors of the Andersonville Prison.United Statessource
  • 7 June – Rednal rail crash in Shropshire: 13 killed, 30 injured.United Kingdomsource
  • 17 June – A fire breaks out in the eastern part of Nørresundby and ends up destroying much of the town.Denmarksource
  • 17 July – The wooden barquentine Ada collides with the RMS Jeddo and sinks in Sydney Harbour.Australiasource
  • July 30 – The steamer Brother Jonathan sinks off the California coast, killing 225 passengers and crew.source
  • August 25 – The Shergotty meteorite Mars meteorite falls in Sherghati, Gaya, Bihar in India.source
  • October 26 – The paddlewheel steamer SS Republic sinks off the Georgia coast, with a cargo of $400,000 in coins.source
  • 29 November — Two men die when a coal train falls into the North Dock at Swansea.Walessource
  • A forest fire near Silverton, Oregon, destroys about one million acres (4,000 km 2 ) of timber.source
  • Shergotty meteorite fell at Sherghati, Gaya, Bihar, IndiaIndiasource
  • 30–31 December – 24 vessels are wrecked around the Dubh Artach reef in a storm.Scotlandsource

Climate & Environment

  • March 25 – The "Claywater Meteorite" explodes just before reaching ground level in Vernon County, Wisconsin; fragments having a combined mass of 1.5 kg are recovered.United Statessource
  • October 8 – The 6.3 MLa Santa Cruz Mountains earthquake shakes the Central Coast and San Francisco Bay Area of California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), causing $500,000 in damage.United Statessource

Culture & Society

  • 18 February: The Press in Christchurch starts publishing a magazine, The Weekly Press. The magazine ran until 1928.New Zealandsource
  • March 4 – Washington College and Jefferson College are merged to form Washington & Jefferson College in the United States.source
  • 6 April – Hans Christian Andersens romantic comedy When the Spaniards Were Here premiers at the Royal Danish Theatre.Denmarksource
  • April 27 – Governor of New York Reuben Fenton signs a bill formally creating Cornell University.source
  • May 23 – Grand Review of the Armies: Union Army troops parade down Pennsylvania Avenue (Washington, D.C.) to celebrate the end of the American Civil War.source
  • June 10 – Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde debuts at the Munich Court Theatre.source
  • July 4 – Lewis Carroll publishes his children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in England (first trade editions in December).source
  • July 9 – establishment of Nueve de Julio PartidoArgentinasource
  • July 27 – Businessman Asa Packer establishes Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.source
  • September 19 – Union Business College (now Peirce College) is founded in Philadelphia.source
  • 22 September – Frederik Stang founds the Norwegian Red CrossNorwaysource
  • 16 December – Leopold I of Belgium buried in Laken, despite his wish to be buried in Windsor; Auguste t'Kint arrives in Yokohama as the first Belgian diplomat in Japan.Belgiumsource
  • December 18 – The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime) is declared ratified by three-quarters of the states of the United States.United Statessource
  • December 21 – The Kappa Alpha Order is founded at Washington College, Lexington, Virginia.source
  • Nottingham Forest Football Club, an association football based in West Bridgford, Nottingham, England, is founded.source
  • Toryboy wins the Melbourne Cup. A trophy is awarded for the first time.Australiasource
  • Author Leo Tolstoy begins publishing his historical novel War and Peace in serial form in the periodical Russkiy Vestnik under the title 1805.Russiasource

Births

  • February 19 – Sven Hedin, Swedish scientist, explorer (died 1952)source
  • April 9 – Charles Proteus Steinmetz, German-American engineer, electrician (died 1923)source
  • April 9 – Erich Ludendorff, German general (died 1937)source
  • April 16 – Harry Chauvel, Australian Army general (died 1945)source
  • April 26 – Luis Dellepiane, civil engineer, militarist and politicianArgentinasource
  • April – Richard Rushall, British sea captain and businessman (died 1953)source
  • May 5 - Cândido Rondon, military officer (died 1958)Brazilsource
  • June 3 – George V of the United Kingdom (died 1936)source
  • June 9 – Carl Nielsen, Danish composer (died 1931)source
  • June 13 – W. B. Yeats, Irish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1939)source
  • June 19 – Alfred Hugenberg, German businessman, politician (died 1951)source
  • June 27 – John Monash, Australian general (died 1931)source
  • July 26 – Philipp Scheidemann, 11th Chancellor of Germany (died 1939)source
  • 14 September – Guilherme Ivens Ferraz, Navy officer (died 1956)Portugalsource
  • November 2 – Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States (died 1923)source
  • December 8 – Jean Sibelius, Finnish composer (died 1957)source
  • December 30 – Rudyard Kipling, Indian-born English writer, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1936)source
  • date unknown - Tomás Guevara (died 1935)Chilesource

Deaths

  • January 19 – Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, French philosopher, anarchist (born 1809)source
  • February 6 – Isabella Beeton, British cook, household management expert (born 1836)source
  • April 2 – A. P. Hill, American Confederate general (born 1825)source
  • April 15 – Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States (born 1809)source
  • April 26 – John Wilkes Booth, American actor, assassin of Abraham Lincoln (born 1838)source
  • July 25 – James Barry, British military surgeon (born 1795)source
  • July – Dimitris Plapoutas, Greek military leader (born 1786)source
  • August 12 – William Jackson Hooker, English botanist (born 1785)source
  • August 13 – Ignaz Semmelweis, Hungarian physician (born 1818)source
  • 13 August – Willem Cornelis Janse van Rensburg, second President of the Executive Council of the South African Republic. (born 1818)South Africasource
  • August 26 – Johann Franz Encke (born 1791), German astronomerGermanysource
  • September 2 – William Rowan Hamilton, Irish mathematician (born 1805)source
  • October 18 – Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1784)source
  • November 10 – Henry Wirz, Swiss-born American Confederate military officer, prisoner-of-war camp commander (executed) (born 1823)source
  • November 12 – Elizabeth Gaskell, British novelist, biographer (born 1810)source
  • 28 November - José Manuel Pareja (born 1813)Chilesource
  • December 10 – King Leopold I of Belgium (born 1790)source
  • Sengge Rinchen Qing commander killed by the forces of a minor rebel leader of the Nian RebellionChinasource