Semi-Annual UNITED STATES REGISTER: A WORK IN WHICH THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS OF EVERY HALF-YEAR OCCURRING IN THE UNITED STATES ARE RECORDED, EACH ARRANGED UNDER THE DAY OF ITS DATE. 2415 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON AND CO. PHILADELPHIA, TO VIMU PREFACE. THE author of this has long thought that there was a necessity for a work which should preserve the incidents of the day ("the story of our lives from year to year") in a form in which they could be conveniently used for reference. There is now nothing save the newspapers in which they are recorded. These are merely intended for the day, and, in nearly all cases, are destroyed soon after they are perused. But, even when preserved, their inconvenient form, the absence of an index, and the general arrangement of their matter, preclude their use for the purposes for which this book is intended. To supply this want, the author will issue, every six months, the following work, which he has denominated VINCENT'S SEMI-ANNUAL UNITED STATES REGISTER, the present volume of which commences with the 1st of January, 1860, and contains a notice of the events occurring in the Union between that date and the 30th of June. The next volume will commence with the 1st of July, and end with the 31st of December; and so on,-each book commencing, in its proper rotation, with either the first day of July or of January, and ending with the last day of June or of December. This work is designed to be what its title imports, an historical record of the events occurring every half-year in this country, each event being placed under the day of its occurrence: so that the reader, by reference to the index, can readily find any event occurring during the half-year. The plan of the work is as follows. In it will be recorded, arranged as before stated, losses of life by accident or violence; deaths of men of mark, with biographical sketches detailing the principal events of their lives,-"so that a good man's name may outlive him half a year;" the deaths and sketches of the lives of Revolutionary heroes, who are dropping away one by one; also of all centenarians and of those who have become prominent for good or evil before the public; meetings and adjournments of State Legislatures, and laws passed by them of interesting or singular nature; proceedings of State conventions, results of State and city elections, and all matters of interest appertaining to State Governments; important decisions of courts of law; bequests for public purposes; failures of banks and individuals, where the amount involved or the circumstances attending them render them of public interest; defalcations, forgeries, and robberies of a similar character; all duels; all affrays of men of such high position as to render their occurrence strange and startling to the community; all wrecks of vessels and loss of life at sea; all losses of steamboats on our rivers; all fires where property is destroyed to the value of over eight thousand dollars; all offences against morals, attended with crime, where they have become of world-wide notoriety by publication in the press, and which, from the position of 229455 3 |