1846 – After the Milwaukee Bridge War, Juneautown and Kilbourntown unify as the City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Milwaukee Bridge War, sometimes simply the Bridge War, was an 1845 conflict between people from different regions of what is now Milwaukee, Wisconsin over the construction of a bridge crossing the Milwaukee River. By the 1840s, there had grown a great rivalry between Juneautown—east-side Milwaukee—and Kilbourntown—west-side Milwaukee—mostly due to the actions of Byron Kilbourn, Kilbourntown’s founder, who had been trying to isolate Juneautown to make it more dependent on Kilbourntown. In 1840, the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature, finding the ferry system on the Milwaukee River to be “inadequate”, ordered the construction of a bridge. Kilbourn and his supporters viewed the bridge as a threat to their plans. Furthermore, the two towns disputed over the funding for the bridge; ultimately, this led to Kilbourn destroying part of the bridge in 1845. Mobs formed on the east side of the river, but further violence was prevented for two more weeks when two smaller bridges were destroyed by men from Juneautown in an attempt to cut Kilbourntown off from the east and south side. Eventually, skirmishes broke out between the inhabitants of the two towns; no one was killed, although several people were injured, some seriously. It was in the aftermath of the Bridge War that Juneautown and Kilbourntown began making greater attempts at cooperation, ultimately resulting in their unification as the City of Milwaukee.
1848 – John C. Frémont is Court-martialed for mutiny and disobeying orders. On January 16, 1847, Commodore Stockton had appointed Frémont military governor of California following the Treaty of Cahuenga. However, U.S. Army Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny, who allegedly outranked both Stockton and Frémont, had orders from President Polk and secretary of war William L. Marcy to serve as military governor. (In reality, Stockton’s rank was equivalent to a rear admiral (lower half) today. Therefore, Stockton and Kearny had the same equivalent rank (one star,) and the War Department had not worked out a protocol for who would be in charge.) He asked Frémont to give up the governorship, which the latter stubbornly refused to do before finally relenting. Ordered to march with Kearny’s army back east, Frémont was arrested on August 22, 1847 when they arrived at Fort Leavenworth. He was charged with mutiny, disobedience of orders, assumption of powers, along with several other military offenses. Ordered by Kearny to report to the adjutant general in Washington to stand for court-martial, Frémont was convicted of mutiny, disobedience of a superior officer and military misconduct.
1863 – The 1st South Carolina Volunteers, later called the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops was officially recognized. Components of the regiment had been in training since early 1962.
1864 – An expedition comprising some 40 sailors and 350 soldiers with a 12-pound howitzer, under command of Lieutenant Commander Charles W. Flusser, marched inland from the Roanoke River North Carolina. They “held the town of Windsor several hours, and marched back 8 miles to our boats without a single shot from the enemy.”
1865 – The U.S. House of Representatives passes the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in the United States. It read, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” When the Civil War began, President Lincoln’s professed goal was the restoration of the Union. But early in the war, the Union began keeping escaped slaves rather than returning them to their owners, so slavery essentially ended wherever the Union army was victorious. In September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in areas that were still in rebellion against the Union. This measure opened the issue of what to do about slavery in border states that had not seceded or in areas that had been captured by the Union before the proclamation. In 1864, an amendment abolishing slavery passed the Senate but died in the House as Democrats rallied in the name of states’ rights. The election of 1864 brought Lincoln back to the White House and significant Republican majorities in both houses, so it appeared the amendment was headed for passage when the new Congress convened in March 1865. Lincoln preferred that the amendment receive bipartisan support–some Democrats indicated support for the measure, but many still resisted. The amendment passed 119 to 56, seven votes above the necessary two-thirds majority. Several Democrats abstained, but the 13th Amendment was sent to the states for ratification, which came in December 1865. With the passage of the amendment, the institution that had indelibly shaped American history and had started the Civil War was eradicated.
1865 – Gen. Robert E. Lee was named general-in-chief of the Confederate armies.
