Wednesday, March 13, 2013

More Civil War trivia and facts

Caring for the wounded at Antietam, 1862.http://www.gettysburgaddress.com/HTMLS/triviaQ.html

Persons, Sites, Actions, and Things


Q. What milk product, patented in 1856, became an important part of the Union Soldiers´ diets?
Q. What was the name of Robert E. Lee´s beloved horse, now memorialized at Washington and Lee University?
Q. What was the name of Jefferson´s Davisfords last home, which after his death became a home for confederate veterans and the wives or widows and is now a museum?
Q. What state university, whose students left en masse in 1861 to join the University Grays or the Lamar Rifles, is best known by its nickname, the antebellum term for the mistress of a southern plantation?
Q. When the Federal government confiscated Mrs. Robert E. Lee´s ancestral mansion where the Lees lived before the war, what use was made of the property?

Numbers Tell Their Own Stories

Q. In the election of 1860, what percentage of the voters backed Abraham Lincoln, who had pledged to preserve the Union, whatever the cost?
Q. What was the population of the United Sates in 1860, slaves included, but American Indians not counted?
Q. During 1861-65, with more that 955,000 immigrants arriving, what was the approximate division to the North and South?
Q. At Antietam, or Sharpsburg, about how many casualties were suffered on Wednesday, September 17, 1862?
Q. How many men were in the Pennsylvania units that reached Washington on April 18, 1861, constituting its only important defense?

Places: Small and Large, Obscure and Famous

Q. The English-born entertainer Harry McCarthy wrote the popular southern song "The Bonnie Blue Flag" in the spring of 1861 and performed it for the first time in what city?
Q. In what vast uninhabited marshy area of tangled forest and underbrush west of Chancellorsville, Virginia, did Grant propose to fight it our "if it takes all summer"?
Q. Jefferson Davis regarded what site in his home state as "the Gibraltar of the West"?
Q. What city held the only gas works of the confederacy capable of inflating observation balloons?
Q. What small community was completely transformed by General Grant, who made it his headquarters and the "nerve center" of the Union for the final ten months of the war?

Weapons: Old and New, Deadly and Harmless

Q. What was the caliber of the bayonet-equipped Enfield rifle-musket, usually listed simply as "rifle"?
Q. What distinguished the eight-inch seacoast howitzer, model 1841, from counterparts used in the field?
Q. What was the maximum range of a shell from the gigantic twenty-inch Rodman Smoothbore gun?
Q. Thirteen-inch seacoast mortars could send a 220-pound bomb 4,325 yards if elevated to what degree?
Q. How many guns were expected to be fired as a salute to the U.S. flag when Fort Sumter was surrendered?

War in the East

Q. What engagement is generally considered to have been Robert E. Lee´s final offensive of the war?
Q. What battle, at the time considered by some Federals to be a victory, became the excuse for issuing the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862?
Q. At Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia, May 12, 1864, approximately how many casualties were counted within one square mile?
Q. By causing considerable mirth among watching Confederate soldiers across the Rappahannock River in January 1863, a bogged-down "advance" by Union troop was given what name?
Q. Where did Joseph E. Johnston, C.S.A., surrender his army to William Tecumseh Sherman, U.S.A.?

War in the South and West

Q. Although General Rosecrans reported a Union victory at Stone´s River, Tennessee, how did his casualties compare with those of the Confederates?
Q. What northern general, threatened with being relieved of his command, was described to President Lincoln in 1861 as "a drunken wooden-headed tanner"?
Q. In what state did the engagement of Coffeeville take place?
Q. From what site was the last large Federal land Campaign launched?
Q. Although they fought only skirmishes, what troops made a heroic march in 1862 across mountains and desert to secure the Arizona Territory for the Union?

War on the Water: Salt and Fresh

Q. The loyalty of what Union naval officer was questioned because of his southern roots?
Q. In what waters did David Farragut, U.S.N., reputedly cry,"Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!"?
Q. What Confederate ironclad dueled with Farragut´s flagship, the USS Hartford, in Mobile Bay?
Q. Jeering Confederates aboard what southern vessel called the USS Monitor the "tin can on a shingle"?
Q. What was the result of the famed duel between the Monitor and the Virginia (Merrimack)?

Roles of Civilians

Q. The parents of Thomas ("Tad") Lincoln became concerned because he had not learned to read at what age?
Q. After Shiloh, which Union general did Gov. David Todd of Ohio want court-martialed?
Q. What woman writer who defended Lincoln's use of war powers claimed to have planned the western campaign of 1862?
Q. Whose name is attached to a December 1860 proposal for six U.S. constitutional amendments regarding slavery, to seek sectional compromise to avoid war?
Q. What Scottish native reared in Alabama was enlisted in the Confederate army's medical department as a hospital matron?

Transportation and Communication

Q. Of the many signals transmitted to cavalry units by buglers, which one alerts them for march or combat?
Q. Who was entrusted to deliver Lincoln's secret relieving John C. Fremont of command in Missouri?
Q. In what vehicle did Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee travel in 1861 from Fort Mason, Texas, to Washington?
Q. What was the difference between Union and Confederate directional bugle calls?
Q. When Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks burned many freight cars following Cedar Mountain in August 1862, how did he move what was left of his supplies?

First Events and Achievements

Q. Who was the first general to be replaced by Lincoln, having been earlier picked by Lincoln to command?
Q. What was the target of the first military attack ever made on an oil installation?
Q. In what year did the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, first celebrate the Fourth of July after it fell to General Grant on July 4, 1863?
Q. Who received the first Congressional Medal of Honor?
Q. Connecticut-born George S. Smith of Charleston, South Carolina, made an epochal first photograph of what?

Fighting Men of the C.S.A

Q. What guerrilla was hanged in front of U.S. Colored Troops for the reported massacre of black prisoners at Saltsville?
Q. Who was the last surviving general of the C.S.A.?
Q. What general was reduced to the unofficial rank of colonel after having been drunk at Mill Springs, Kentucky, in 1862?
Q. What future general lent travel money to U. S. Grant when Grant resigned from the U. S. Army in California?
Q. Who refused to use pepper on his food, saying it gave him pains in his left leg?


Fighting Men of the U.S.A.

Q. What friend of Abraham Lincoln formed Chicago's Zouave Cadets and the New York Fire Zouaves?
Q. What was unusual about the appearance of zouave units?
Q. How many defenders of Fort Sumter later became major generals?
Q. How many regiments wore Federal blue uniforms at First Bull Run (First Manassas)?
Q. When did U. S. Grant quit trimming his beard and for a short time permited it to grow full length?
AnswersSpecial thanks to Webb Garrison who was gracious enough to allow us to use his trivia question from his wonderful book Civil War Trivia and Fact Book. Also thanks to Dick and Pauleen Peterson. Contact Gallery 30, where copies of Webb Garrison's book can be purchased.

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