Battle of Interest
Dec 5 Battle of Coffeeville: Confederate forces halt Ulysses S. Grant's Mississippi invasion via Tennessee
Lincoln Orders Santee Sioux Hanged
Dec 6 US President Abraham Lincoln orders hanging of 39 Santee Sioux Indians
- Dec 7 Battle of Hartsville, TN
- Dec 7 Battle of Prairie Grove, AR
Battle of Fredricksburg
Dec 11 Battle of Fredricksburg in Virginia begins between Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major General Ambrose Burnside
- Dec 12 Battle of Dumfries, Virginia
- Dec 12 Naval Engagement at Yazoo River, MS (USS CAIRO torpedoed)
- Dec 13 Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia (Marye's Heights)
- Dec 14 Battle of Kinston, fought in Lenoir County, North Carolina begins (Goldsboro Expedition), Union victory (US Civil War)
- Dec 16 Kingdom of Nepal accepts its constitution
- Dec 17 General Ulysses S. Grant issues order #11, expelling Jews from Tennessee
- Dec 18 Battle at Lexington, Tennessee (part of Forrest's Second Raid)
- Dec 19 Skirmish at Jackson, Salem Church, Tennessee (80 casualties)
- Dec 20 -Dec 20th] Battle of Kelly's Ford, VA
- Dec 20 -Jan 3rd] Vicksburg campaign
Confederates Occupy Trenton, Kentucky
Dec 20 Confederate Army Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest occupies Trenton, Kentucky (US Civil War)
- Dec 20 Confederate raid on Union supplies at Holly Springs, Mississippi
- Dec 22 -Jan 2nd) Raid on Morgan's: Bardstown to Elizabethtown, KY
Jefferson Davis Labels Beast Butler a "Felon"
Dec 23 Union General Ben "Beast" Butler is proclaimed a "felon, outlaw & common enemy of mankind" by Jefferson Davis
- Dec 25 40,000 watch Union army men play baseball at Hilton Head, South Carolina
- Dec 26 Largest mass execution in US history: 38 Dakota men were executed via hanging in the aftermath of the U.S.-Dakota War in Mankato, Minnesota [1]
- Dec 26 US Civil War: Battle of Dumfries begins in Virginia
- Dec 26 US Navy formally commissions 1st hospital ship, the USS Red Rover - a captured Confederate sidewheel barracks ship converted for the purpose - for service on the Mississippi [1] [2]
- Dec 27 Battle of Chickasaw Bluffs, MS (Chickasaw Bayou)
- Dec 27 Battle of Elizabethtown, Kentucky
Battle of Chichasaw Bayou
Dec 29 Battle of Chichasaw Bayou: confederate armies defeat General William T. Sherman
- Dec 29 Bowling ball invented
- Dec 31 -Jan 20th) Battle of Stone's River (Battle of Murfreesboro), Tennessee in US Civil War
- Dec 31 President Abraham Lincoln signs act admitting West Virginia to the Union
- Dec 31 Skirmish at Parker Cross Roads, Tennessee
- Dec 31 Union ironclad ship "Monitor" sank off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina
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