- Apr 5 Comte de Villebois-Marevil, French/South African general, dies in battle
- Apr 7 Frederick Edwin Church, American romantic landscape painter (Hudson River School), dies at 73
- Apr 11 Seth Barton, American Brigadier General (Confederate Army), dies at 70
- Apr 20 Alexandre Falguière, French sculptor and painter, dies at 68
- Apr 21 Heinrich Vogl, composer, dies at 55
- Apr 24 George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll and Secretary of State for India (1868-74, 1880-85), dies at 76
- Apr 24 Andrew Smith Hallidie, American inventor and cable car pioneer, dies at 64
- Apr 30 Casey Jones, American railroad engineer, dies at 36 heroically in Cannonball Express train wreck