1865 

Decades: 1810s 1820s 1830s 1840s 1850s - 1860s - 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s

Years: 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 - 1865 - 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870

• January 31 - American Civil War: Confederate General Robert E. Lee becomes general-in-chief.
• February 17 - American Civil War: Columbia, South Carolina burns as Confederate forces flee from advancing Union forces.
• February 22 - Tennessee adopts a new constitution that abolishes slavery.
• March 3 - The United States Congress authorizes formation of the Freedmen's Bureau[?]
• March 13 - American Civil War: The Confederate States of America reluctantly agrees to the use of African American troops.
• March 18 - American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States of America adjourns for the last time
• March 19 - American Civil War: The Battle of Bentonville[?] begins. By the end of the battle on the 21st the Confederate forces had retreated from Greenville, North Carolina.
• March 25 - American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces capture Fort Stedman[?] from the Union.
• March 29 - American Civil War: Battle of Appomattox Court House[?] begins
• April 1 - American Civil War: Battle of Five Forks - In Petersburg, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee begins his final offensive.
• April 2 - American Civil War: Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet flee the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia which is taken the next day.
• April 9 - American Civil War: General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, effectively ending the American Civil War.
• April 14 - US President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.
• April 26 - Union cavalry corner John Wilkes Booth and cavalryman Boston Corbett shoots the assassin dead.
• April 26 - American Civil War: Confederate General Joseph Johnston[?] surrenders his army to General William Tecumseh Sherman at Durham Station, North Carolina[?].
• April 27 - The steamboat Sultana[?], carrying 2,300 passengers, explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1,700, most of whom were Union survivors of the Andersonville Prison[?].
• May 10 - American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is captured by Union troops near Irwinville, Georgia[?].
• May 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 ends with a Union victory.
• May 23 - Parade down Pennsylvania Ave in Washington, DC to celebrate the ending of the American Civil War.
• May 25 - Mobile magazine explosion: 300 are killed in Mobile, Alabama when an ordnance depot explodes.
• July 5 - William Booth founds the Christian Mission (later renamed to the Salvation Army).
• December 24 - Several US Civil War Confederate veterans form the Ku Klux Klan.

• Gregor Mendel formulates his theories of Mendelian inheritance.
• A forest fire near Silverton, Oregon destroys about one million acres of timber.

Arts, Sciences, Literature and Philosophy

• 1865 in literature:
  • July 4 - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland published.

Births

• February 19 - Sven Hedin[?], scientist (+ 1952)
• May 25 - Pieter Zeeman, Nobel Prize winner (+ 1943)
• May 26 - Robert W. Chambers, artist (+ 1933)
• June 3 - King George V of the United Kingdom
• August 24 - King Ferdinand of Romania
• October 1 - Paul Dukas, French composer
• October 26 - Benjamin Guggenheim, businessman, went down on Titanic
• December 8 - Jean Sibelius, composer

Deaths

• April 2 - A.P. Hill, Confederate general
• April 15 - Abraham Lincoln, US President
• April 26 - John Wilkes Booth, actor and assassin of Abraham Lincoln
• December 10 - Leopold I of Belgium