- Jan 1 1st homestead under the Homestead Act claimed, near Beatrice, Nebraska
- Jan 1 Battle of Galveston, Texas-Confederates recapture the city
Lincoln Issues Emancipation Proclamation
Jan 1 Emancipation Proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln to free slaves in US confederate states
- Jan 2 Battle of Murfreesboro (Stone's River) ends
- Jan 4 Four wheeled roller skates patented by James Plimpton in New York
- Jan 4 The New Apostolic Church is established in Germany
- Jan 8 American Civil War: Second Battle of Springfield
- Jan 9 -Jan 11th] Battle of Arkansas Post, AR (Ft Hindman)
- Jan 10 1st underground railway opens in London
- Jan 10 General McClernand's Union troops surround Fort Hindman, Arkansas
- Jan 10 January uprising begins in Poland
- Jan 11 Naval engagement near Galveston between CSS Alabama and USS Hatteras
- Jan 11 Union forces capture Arkansas Post, or Ft Hindman, Arkansas
- Jan 12 Confederate President Davis delivers his "State of Confederacy" address
- Jan 13 Chenille yarn making machine patented by William Canter in NYC
- Jan 14 Battle between gunboats at Bayou Teche, Louisiana
- Jan 15 1st US newspaper printed on wood-pulp paper, Boston Morning Journal
- Jan 16 -Aug 23rd) Cruise of CSS Florida
- Jan 17 Civil War skirmish near Newtown, Virginia
- Jan 19 General Mieroslawski appointed dictator of Poland
- Jan 21 City of Dublin leases part of Cattle Market for 100,000 years
- Jan 22 January Uprising begins in Poland, prompted a rebellion against conscription into the Russian army
- Jan 22 The January Uprising, an insurrection in Russia's Kingdom of Poland aimed at restoration of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth begins; carries on for 1-1/2 years, but fails
- Jan 22 Union General Burnside's "Mud March"
- Jan 25 General Joseph Hooker replaces Burnside as head of Army of Potomac
- Jan 26 American Civil War: Massachusetts Governor receives permission from Secretary of War to raise a militia organization for men of African descent (54th Massachusetts Regiment)
- Jan 29 Bear River Massacre: American soldiers slaughter hundreds of Native Americans at the confluence of the Bear River and Beaver Creek in present day Idaho
- Jan 31 1st black Civil War regiment, South Carolina Volunteers, mustered into US army
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