March 1863 in History

Events in History

Mar 3 US Congress authorizes track width of 4'8½" for Union Pacific Railroad

Mar 3 Abraham Lincoln approves charter for National Academy of Sciences

Mar 3 Congress authorizes a US mint at Carson City, Nevada
Mar 3 Federal ironclad ships bombard Fort McAllister, Georgia
Mar 3 Free city delivery replaces zone postage; 449 letter carriers hired
Mar 3 Gold certificates (currency) authorized by US Congress
Mar 3 Idaho Territory forms
Mar 4 Battle of Thompson's Station, Tennessee
Mar 4 Territory of Idaho established
Mar 17 Battle of Kelly's Ford, Virginia with 211 causalities
Mar 19 Confederate cruiser SS Georgiana destroyed on her maiden voyage with a cargo of munitions, and medicines then valued over $1,000,000. Wreck discovered exactly 102 years later by teenage diver and pioneer underwater archaeologist E. Lee Spence.
Mar 21 Naval Engagement at Havana, Cuba: USS Henrick Hudson vs Confederate blokcade runner Wild Pigeon

Mar 25 1st US Army Medal of Honor awarded to six army soldiers by US Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in Washington

Mar 27 American Confederate President Jefferson Davis calls for this to be a day of fasting & prayer

Mar 30 Danish prince Wilhelm Georg of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg chosen as king George of Greece
Mar 31 Battle of Grand Gulf, Mississippi and Dinwiddie Court House, Virginia

Mar 1 Alexander Golovin, Russian painter (d. 1930)
Mar 3 Arthur Machen, Welsh-born author (d. 1947)
Mar 4 Reginald Innes Pocock, British zoologist (d. 1947)
Mar 4 John Henry Wigmore, American jurist and expert in the law of evidence (d. 1943)
Mar 11 Wobbe de Vries, Dutch linguist
Mar 12 Adolf A Wolfschoon, Curacao, poet
Mar 12 Gabriele D'Annunzio, Italian poet, writer (Il fuoco, Intruder), playwright and military hero as part of the elite Arditi storm troops, born in Pescara, Italy (d. 1938)
Mar 12 Vladimir Vernadsky, Russian mineralogist (d. 1945)
Mar 17 Homer Plessy, American Creole shoemaker and civil rights pioneer (plaintiff in landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson 1896), born in New Orleans, Louisiana (d. 1925)
Mar 21 George Owen Squier, American inventor and Major General in U.S. Signal Corp (d. 1934)
Mar 23 Godfried CE van Daalen, Dutch general/governor of Atjeh