Timeline December 1862

Events in December 1862 3

• 1862 Dakota War in Minnesota Sioux uprising against broken treaty promises Dakota Sioux, facing broken treaty payments and starvation, attacked white settlements across the Minnesota River valley. The conflict ended with the mass execution of 38 Dakota men in Mankato, the largest single-day execution in US history.
• 1862 – 1863 Louisa May Alcott serves as a Civil War nurse Union Hotel Hospital, Georgetown She nurses wounded Union soldiers until she falls ill with typhoid pneumonia. The mercury-based medicine she is given may have damaged her health for life.
• 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg Union assault fails against entrenched Confederates Union forces under General Ambrose Burnside launched repeated, unsuccessful frontal assaults on entrenched Confederate positions at Fredericksburg, Virginia. The battle produced over 12,000 Union casualties and was one of the most lopsided defeats of the war.