In the Great Flood of 1862, San Francisco receives 24.49 inches (622.0 mm) of rainfall for January, its highest monthly rainfall on record, and the “rain year” total from July 1861 to June of 49.27 inches (1,251.5 mm) is also the highest ever.[1]
June 5 – President Abraham Lincoln signs a bill into law allowing for the appointment of diplomats to Liberia and Haiti, the first time Congress had recognized a Black government.[2]
June 12 – John Winter Robinson, Secretary of State of Kansas, is convicted and removed from office as the result of a bond scandal, becoming the first state executive officers to be impeached and removed from office in U.S. history.
June 19 – Congress passes legislation outlawing slavery in U.S. territories.
July 2 – President Abraham Lincoln signs the Morrill Land Grant Act into law, creating land-grant colleges to teach agricultural and mechanical sciences across the U.S.
July 8 – Theodore Timby is granted a U.S. patent for discharging guns in a revolving turret, using electricity.
August 14 – U. S. President Abraham Lincoln meets with a group of prominent African-Americans – the first time a president has done so. He suggests Black people should migrate to Africa or Central America, but this advice is rejected.
August 17 – Dakota War: A Lakota (Sioux) uprising begins in Minnesota as Lakota Sioux attack white settlements along the Minnesota River. They are overwhelmed by the U.S. military six weeks later.
August 19
Dakota War: During an uprising in Minnesota, Lakota warriors decide not to attack heavily defended Fort Ridgely and instead turn to the settlement of New Ulm, killing white settlers along the way.
Horace Greeley publishes an editorial, "The Prayer of Twenty Millions", in the New York Tribune, in which he urges President Abraham Lincoln to make abolition of slavery an official aim of the Union war effort.
American Civil War: The Allegheny Arsenal explosion results in the single largest civilian disaster during the war, with 78 workers – mostly young women – being killed.
October 24 – American Civil War: Tonkawa massacre – 300 members of the Confederacy-supporting Tonkawa tribe members taking refuge at the Wichita Agency (modern-day Fort Sill) are attacked by a large group of pro-Union Indians. An estimated 137 Tonkawas are killed, including their chief, Ha-shu-ka-na ("Can't Kill Him"). The completely-demoralized survivors flee to Fort Griffin in Texas in 1863. They return to Indian Territory in 1885 and settle near Fort Oakland (modern-day Tonkawa, Oklahoma).
July 24 – Martin Van Buren, eighth president of the United States from 1837 to 1841, eighth vice president of the United States from 1833 to 1837 (born 1782)
August 30 – John Hugh Means, 64th governor of South Carolina from 1850 to 1852 (born 1812)
^"Handwritten Manuscript by Stephen Foster, "Willie Has Gone To War""(PDF). Foster Hall Collection, Collection Number: CAM.FHC.2011.01. University of Pittsburgh, Archives and Manuscript Collections at the University of Pittsburgh Library System. 1862. Retrieved October 1, 2015.
"American Annual Cyclopaedia ... 1862", American Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year, NY: D. Appleton & Co.: 14 v – via HathiTrust
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