1838

Events from the year 1838 in the United States.
==Incumbents==
===Federal Government===
* President: Martin Van Buren (D-NY)
* Vice President: Richard Mentor Johnson (D-KY)
* Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (MD)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives: James K. Polk (D-TN)
* Congress: 25th
==Events==
===January - March===
* January 6 – Samuel Morse first publicly demonstrates the telegraph.
* January 8 – Alfred Vail demonstrates a telegraph using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code).
* January 12 – History of the Latter Day Saint movement: Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon flee Ohio for Missouri.
* January 27 – Abraham Lincoln speaks at the Springfield Young Men's Lyceum.
* March 8 – The New Orleans Mint strikes its first coinage, 30 dimes.
===April - June===
* May 2 – Trail of Tears: The Cherokee removal begins with the forced relocation of the Cherokee Native American tribe, which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 4,000 Cherokee Indians.
* June 12 – Iowa Territory is created. At the time of its founding, Iowa Territory encompassed parts of modern-day Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, as well as all of Iowa. The river city of Burlington functions as the territorial capital until 1841.
===July - September===
* July 3 – Iowa Territory is effective.
* September 3 – Dressed in a sailor's uniform and carrying identification papers provided by a free Black seaman, future abolitionist Frederick Douglass boards a train in Maryland on his way to freedom from slavery.
* September 4 – Potawatomi Trail of Death, the forced relocation of 859 members of the Potawatomi nation from Indiana to Kansas, begins. More than 40 Potawatomi die from disease and the stress of the march.
===October - December===
* October 5 – Killough massacre, believed to have been both the largest and last Native American attack on white settlers in East Texas; 18 casualties are either killed or carried away.
* October 16 – Grave Creek Stone, a probable hoax, allegedly discovered in Moundsville, West Virginia.
* October 27 – Governor of Missouri Lilburn Boggs issues Missouri Executive Order 44 (the "Extermination Order"), ordering the expulsion of all Mormons from the state. This winter, Mormons fleeing this persecution are welcomed in Quincy, Illinois.
* November 4 – Survivors of the Potawatomi Trail of Death arrive at the modern-day site of Osawatomie, Kansas.
==Memoriam==
* January 12 – Joshua Humphreys, naval architect (aged 86; Haverford, PA, USA)
* January 30 – Osceola, a leader of the Seminole during the Second Seminole War (aged 34; Fort Moultrie, SC, USA)
* March 7 – Robert Townsend, member of the Culper Spy Ring (aged 84; Oyster Bay, NY, USA)
* March 16 – Nathaniel Bowditch, mathematician (aged 64; Boston, MA, USA)
* August 1 – John Rodgers, naval officer (aged 66; Philadelphia, PA, USA)
* August 19 – James Geddes, engineer, surveyor, New York State legislator and U.S. Congressman (aged 75; Salina, NY, USA)
* September 1 – William Clark, explorer (aged 68; St. Louis, MO, USA)
* October 3 – Black Hawk, a leader of the Sauk people (aged 71; Davis County, IA Territory, USA)
* October 17 – Nathan Sanford, U.S. Senator from New York from 1815 to 1821 and from 1826 to 1831 (aged 60; New York City, NY, USA)
* October 23 – Joseph Lancaster, English-born Quaker educationist (aged 59; New York City, NY, USA)
==External links==
* 1838 in the United States
Category:United States History: Volume 6