- Dec 1 Micah Jenkins, American Brigadier General (Confederate Army), born in Edisto Island, South Carolina (d. 1864)
- Dec 4 Samuel Butler, English author (Erewhom, Way of All Flesh), born in Langar, Nottinghamshire, England (d. 1902)
- Dec 6 Rudolf Fittig, German chemist (synthesizing organic compounds), born in Hamburg, Germany (d. 1910)
- Dec 7 Dom Joseph Pothier, French monk and musicologist, born in Bouzemont, France (d. 1923)
- Dec 11 Adolf Stoecker, German conservative politician, and reformer who founded the German Christian Social Party, born in Halberstadt, Germany (d. 1909)
- Dec 12 Georges Jean Pfeiffer, French composer, born in Versailles, France (d. 1908)
- Dec 13 Phillips Brooks, American Episcopal bishop and composer (Little Town of Bethlehem), born in Boston, Massachusetts (d. 1893)
- Dec 17 Alexander Agassiz, American biologist and geologist, born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland (d. 1910)
- Dec 18 George Dashiell Bayard, American Brigadier General (Union Army), born in Seneca Falls, New York (d. 1862)
- Dec 18 Lyman Abbott, American theologian and author, born in Roxbury, Massachusetts (d. 1922)
- Dec 28 Archibald Geikie, Scottish geologist (Scenery of Scotland), born in Edinburgh, Scotland (d. 1924)
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