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40. Who
was the biggest fool on April Fool's Day of 1865?
General George Pickett.
As if having a failed battle
charge named for him wasn't enough, Pickett suffered further
humiliation in the closing days of the war. On April 1,
1865 his troops were attacked at Five Forks while he was two
miles away enjoying a shad bake with Generals Fitzhugh Lee and
Thomas Rosser. Atmospheric conditions muffled the sounds
of battle so they remained unaware of it until they returned. By
that time it was too late, and the final defeat of Confederate
forces was all but complete. Pickett spent the rest of
his life selling insurance; and after his death, his child-bride
LaSalle spent the rest of her life writing books and articles
to clear his name.
39. Who
defined an honest politician as someone who, "once bought,
stays bought"?
Simon Cameron, famous
as a political machine boss, political opportunist, and Abraham
Lincoln's first Secretary of War. Cameron served less
than a year, resigning after stories of his unscrupulous
dealings in contracting for war materiel came to light. He's
also known as one who "never forgot a friend or forgave an
enemy." His actions in procuring inferior army uniforms
and blankets that would shred and fall apart gave rise to
the word "shoddy" for any poorly manufactured product.
38. What
was known as a "shinplaster?"
"Shinplaster"
is a term dating back to the American Revolution, and perhaps
beyond. History has it that a soldiers' pay was of so little
value that they used it to put in their boots to protect
their shins. Because of its devaluation as a result of
wartime inflation and the prevalence of counterfeiting,
the term later was used to describe Confederate money.
37.
Name another member of the Lincoln family who served as president.
Robert Todd Lincoln
served in government, was a successful private attorney, and
in 1901 became president of the Pullman Luxury Coach Company,
makers of the famous locomotive sleeping car.
36.
Name the two songs known best to General Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant was once asked
which of the many war songs he liked best. He mentioned that
he was a poor person to ask such a question because, "I
know only two tunes. One of them is Yankee Doodle. The other
isn't."
35.
Who said, "No pack of whining, snarling, ill-fed, vagabond
street dogs ... ever more strongly produced the impression of
forlorn, outcast, helpless, hopeless misery."
This quote by Frederick
Law Olmsted describes the retreating Union Army after the First
Battle of Bull Run.
34.
Who was known as the dictator of Congress?
Pennsylvania Senator
Thaddeus Stevens.
As related by Hans
L. Trefuosse in Thaddeus Stevens, 19th Century Egalitarian,
"When in a minority, he was a terror to an arbitrary majority,
and when in a majority, he 'laid a heavy hand' on a minority.
No wonder the man his enemies in Gettysburg called 'dictator'
was later to be considered, the dictator of Congress."
33.
Who called baseball "America's game"?
Poet Walt Whitman.
It was Whitman's
friend and biographer Horace Traubel who tells how Whitman responded
when Traubel told him that baseball has become "the hurrah
game of the republic."
Whitman replied,
"That's beautiful: the hurrah game! Well, it's our game:
that's the chief fact in connection with it. America's game:
has the snap, go, fling, of the American atmosphere, belongs
as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly
as our constitutions, laws: is just as important in the sum
total of our historic life."
Whitman also said
baseball would relieve nervousness and dyspepsia. Is that a
poetic or a medical license?
32.
Who was known
as the "Calico Colonel"?
Civil War Nurse Mother
Bickerdyke.
31.
Why did Stagger Lee shoot Billy--AND--what's that got to do
with Civil War history?
Stagger Lee shot
Billy because Billy took his Stetson hat.
What's that got to
do with Civil War history? Almost as soon as the murder occurred,
the story turned into a song that developed into a legend romanticizing
the events of that fateful night in St. Louis. More than just
the murder, the song also touched on the divisive politics in
St. Louis and the interracial strife of the post-Reconstruction
South.
For slaves and slave
descendants, using song to tell a story was common. Since slaves
generally did not read, they passed on their folk stories and
cultural experiences by turning important events into song.
Traced back to Africa and the Caribbean, this tradition appears
as the work songs of the fields, continuing to the Blues (some
consider the first "blues" song to be the story of
"Stagger Lee"); to Jazz, Soul; and, today's Rap music.
Each shares the theme of the underdog pitted against the system,
sometimes winning and sometimes not, but always going down fighting.
W.E.B Du Bois described
the tradition this way: "They are the music of an unhappy
people, of the children of disappointment, they tell of death
and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of
misty wanderings and hidden ways. ... Through all the sorrow
of the Sorrow Songs there breathes a hope--a faith in the ultimate
justice of things. ...These are the African American historical
record."
30.What is
an FFV?
First Families of
Virginia.
Members of these
families are descended from the original English aristocrats
who settled Virginia in the 1650s. They established the pattern
of the elite slave-planter society later emulated throughout
the South. To be included, your family tree requires (legitimate)
branches into the 100 plus families of prominence such as the
Lees, Randolphs, Masons, Chesnutts, Carters, Custises, Berkeleys,
Beckworths, Byrds, and other names reflected in county, school,
and street names found throughout the Old Dominion.
29.What was
Abraham Lincoln’s first official act as President?
Mr. Lincoln's first
official act was to appoint John Nicolay as his secretary. Nicolay,
at a salary of $2500, served throughout the Lincoln Administration,
and along with co-worker John Hay, wrote an extensive Lincoln
biography, the only one approved by Robert Todd Lincoln. Source:
David Herbert Donald's We Are Lincoln Men, page 180.
28.Who said,
“Lee should have been hanged”? Extra credit if you
can tell us why, where, and when it was said.
Henry Adams said,
"I think that Lee should have been hanged. It was all the
worse that he was a good man and a fine character and acted
conscientiously. It's always the good men who do the most harm
in the world."
27.What
did Abraham Lincoln refer to as being both made up of “bean
poles and corn stalks,” as well as “the most remarkable
structure that human eyes ever rested upon.”
Potomac Creek Railroad
Bridge. Throughout the Civil War, Union railroad engineer General
Herman Haupt built--and rebuilt--many railroad bridges, enabling
men and materiel to be transported wherever they were needed.
Among his most impressive accomplishments was the Potomac Creek
Railroad Bridge. Taking only two weeks, using almost two million
feet of lumber, he built a four hundred-foot long, eighty-foot
high bridge, using his own patented lattice-style diagonal braced
trusses. On seeing it, Mr. Lincoln said, “…there
is nothing in it but beanpoles and cornstalks.” During
the war, this bridge remained a vital link to supply the Union
army.
26.In
1862, why was Abraham Lincoln’s October salary less than
it was in September?
In order to pay for the war, Congress passed legislation imposing
a tax on income, to take effect the following September. When
Mr. Lincoln received his September paycheck the next month,
his net salary was $2022.33, $61 (3%) less than his previous
paycheck.
25.What was
a “hire badge”?
Slave hire badges were worn by slaves who were hired out by
their owners. Badge laws were first passed in order to identify
slaves, tax the practice, and to limit this type of labor from
competing with white tradesmen in urban areas. The tags are
about 3” in diameter, made of thin copper and etched with
a number, city, occupation, and year. Of the many thousands
that were issued, only about 100 still exist, and therefore
are extremely valuable. They evoke the heartbreak of slavery
in America, from which a profit is still made. Today slave badges
are valued at over $30,000.
24.President
Lincoln ordered work on the capitol dome to continue throughout
the Civil War as a symbol of the Union…NOT! We learned
this is just another Civil War urban legend. What was the real
reason work continued?
The hazards of government contracts!
Engineer-in-charge of the Capitol dome, Montgomery Meigs, was
the first to use the Capitol as a symbol of unity. In 1856,
to convince Congress to appropriate more money to his project,
Meigs told them that it would be, “a sight well worth
its cost to see the Congress, in the midst of all this agitation,
going on quietly and voting a million for completing the Capitol
of this Federal Union and thus showing the little regard they
had for the foolish fears of those who talked about its end.”
In May 1861, the same Montgomery Meigs ordered a halt to construction
on the Capitol because the government could not guarantee payment.
But the workmen continued. Why? There were 1.3 million pounds
of iron lying on the Capitol grounds waiting to be cast. If
the contractor walked away from the job, it was sure to be stolen
before it had a chance to rust. “The sound of the hammer
never stopped on the national Capitol a single moment during
all our civil troubles,” so wrote the Architect of the
Capitol, and Meigs’ archenemy, Thomas U. Walter. Source:
History of the United States Capitol, by William C. Allen, page
314.
23. A prize
to the reader who visits the new Smithsonian Associates CivilWarStudies.org
web page and can identify the most photographs in our new logo!
The correct answers, left to right top:
Abraham Lincoln caricature in Harper’s; Dunker Church
at Antietam; Rose Greenhow & daughter at the Old Capitol
Prison; Horace Greeley, newspaper editor; drummer boy Johnny
Clem; George Custer; John Wilkes Booth; Stonewall Jackson; Sojourner
Truth; Elmer Ellsworth, young friend of Lincoln’s killed
removing a Confederate flag from an Alexandria hotel; Dr. Mary
Walker, first woman recipient of the Congressional Medal of
Honor; General Confederate General Mahone; Admiral Farragut;
Frederick Douglass; Dorthea Dix; Caspar Burberl terra cotta
frieze on the Pension Building. The building was designed by
Montgomery Meigs.
Left to right, bottom row:
Civil War sheet music; Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain; Clara Barton;
Jefferson Davis; Ulysses S. Grant; Parrott gun at Union battery;
George & Ellen McClellan; deck of the Monitor; Confederate
General John B. Gordon; Mary Lincoln; Libby Prison at Richmond;
Confederates at Gettysburg; vivandiere; construction of the
Capitol dome.
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22. Name
the individual who was once a slave to the attorney who prosecuted
the Dred Scott case in St. Louis, and later worked in the Lincoln
White House.
The answer is: Elizabeth Keckley.
Elizabeth Keckley was born a slave in North Carolina. She was
given to her master’s daughter on her marriage to attorney
Hugh Garland of St. Louis. Although Garland tried the Dred Scott
case in the Supreme Court of Missouri, he was a not prosperous
attorney. Elizabeth was able to earn enough from dressmaking
to buy her own and her son’s freedom. She settled in Washington
DC where she worked for the antebellum “rich and famous”
including Mrs. Jefferson Davis, and eventually Mary Todd Lincoln.
During those years, she became Mrs. Lincoln’s friend and
confidante.
21. Who is
buried in the largest mausoleum in North America?
The answer is: no one.
At least that’s the most correct answer, after being
informed by our devoted readers. “One is entombed in a
mausoleum, not buried.” But what we were really getting
at is who’s in there, anyway?
The answer is Ulysses S. and Julia Dent Grant. While Grant
was a failure as a president and later as a businessman, no
one could deny his success in bringing the Civil War to an end.
Nor could they deny the superb writing skills that allowed him
to finish his memoirs (published with very little re-editing)
the day before his death, thereby rescuing his wife and family
from certain poverty. At the time, Grant was as popular as George
Washington and Abraham Lincoln in the hearts of most Americans.
So, who’s buried in Grant’s tomb? That is, entombed—in
Grant’s tomb? It used to be nobody. A huge fundraising
effort collected the money required to build the monument at
122nd Street in New York City, but it wasn’t finished
for another 12 years. Grant was entombed on the 75th anniversary
of his birth, April 27, 1897 as over a million spectators watched
Mrs. Grant and President William McKinley lay the General in
his final resting-place. Mrs. Grant lived until 1902 and was
entombed next to her husband. The site was among the most popular
of New York’s tourist attractions until decades of neglect
and disrepair took their toll. It wasn’t until the Grant
descendants threatened to move their ancestors elsewhere that
the National Park Service devoted funds to restore the site.
A re-dedication was held one hundred years after the original,
on April 27, 1997
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20.
Who was known as the
"Cleopatra of the Confederacy"?
The
answer is none other than Belle Boyd.
Known as
La Belle Rebelle, her spying career began when she reportedly
shot and killed a Union soldier who insulted her. Belle was
acquitted and soon became a local celebrity in her hometown
of Winchester, attracting the attention of Generals Beauregard
and Jackson, for whom she acted as courier and spy. She was
captured and imprisoned three times, once at the old Carroll
Prison in Washington DC in a cell not far from another famous
Confederate female spy, Mrs. Rose Greenhow. In 1864 she escaped
to England on a mission for the Confederates, and soon after
married the Union naval officer who helped her. She divorced
him and remarried several times and had several children. When
penniless, she hit the road in a stage show where she dressed
in a Confederate uniform and recounted her Civil War adventures.
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19. What
is a "doggery"?
A "place
of dissipation or idle resort, " a saloon.
When running
against Stephen A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln used the word in
an 1858 letter to a campaign associate. Lincoln learns that
the opposition is sending outsiders into the district to pad
the vote for Douglas. Lincoln became suspicious when he observed
a group as they "dropped in about the doggeries" of
the town. In the letter, Lincoln presents a plan to counter
with a tactic of his own. He wrote, "It would be a great
thing, when this trick is attempted upon us, to have the saddle
come up on the other horse... If we can head off the fraudulent
votes we shall carry the day." They did not carry the day,
but the campaign against Douglas brought Abraham Lincoln national
prominence, setting the stage for his presidential victory
in 1860.
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18. Name
the ex-Union general who motivated Jesse & Frank James along
with the Younger Brothers, to rob the First National Bank in
Northfield, Minnesota in 1876.
Adalbert
Ames.
In Jesse
James, Last Rebel of the Civil War, author T. J. Stiles explains
how Ames as governor of Louisiana had unsuccessfully attempted
social reform, with much negative press in both the North and
South. After that bitter experience, Ames set out for Minnesota
to work with his father and brother in their banking business.
For Jesse James, Ames became a bitter reminder of the Lost Cause
and a symbol of Union occupation in the South. His plan was
to target Ames' family's bank to make a "political"
statement against the eastern establishment; and, to steal the
money.
What James
thought would be the end of Ames was instead the beginning of
the end for Jesse himself. In switching from robbing trains--where
the "victim" was a corporation--to robbing banks,
which held the hard-earned savings of working-class folk, the
James Gang lost the romantic esteem they once held in the public
imagination. Those in the gang who were not killed in the Northfield
raid went their separate ways. Jesse spent the rest of his few
remaining years living in hiding and eventually was murdered
in his own home at age 34.
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17. Confederate
dynamite couldn't blow it up and it still stands today. What
now threatens to destroy the Monocacy Aqueduct?
Mother
Nature.
Of course
dynamite couldn't blow it up, because dynamite wasn't invented
until 1866! But while the Confederates did try twice to destroy
the aqueduct, the greatest threat to the structure is 170 years
of alternating heat, cold, and water.
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16. How many
times was Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest wounded
during the Civil War?
Forrest
was physically wounded in battle just three times. At Shiloh,
he was shot through the left hip and the bullet lodged in his
spinal column; he was wounded again just prior to the Battle
of Chickamauga; and, he was shot in the right foot at the Battle
of Tupelo. However, his Civil War medical history is more colorful
if we add the contusions he suffered each of the six times he
was "unhorsed" in battle, with only one instance in
which the horse was shot out from under him. The most unusual
shooting occurred when one of his officers tried to kill him.
Including all these instances, the total number of times Forrest
was wounded during the Civil War is ten.
The answer
comes from Medical Histories of Confederate Generals, by Jack
D. Welsh, M.D., Kent University Press, 1995, Kent, Ohio. Both
this book and its companion, Medical Histories of Union Generals,
make for fascinating, albeit grotesque, reading. When finished,
you will be grateful you live in the age of antibiotics.
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15. For what
was Civil War Colonel Charles Ellet most famous?
Many Civil
War fans are familiar with Charles Ellet's designs for ramming
vessels, which were responsible for winning control of the Mississippi
for the North. Few know that before the Civil War, Charles Ellet
was a civil engineer who was most famous for building the first
suspension bridges in America.
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14. Among
the possessions found with John Wilkes Booth when he was captured
were photographs of five women. Who were they?
The photos
included four actresses of the day, Alice Grey, Helen Western,
Effie Germon, and Fanny Brown. The fifth was Lucy Hale, daughter
of John P. Hale, former senator from New Hampshire and a prominent
Republican abolitionist. Lucy and Booth were secretly engaged
a month before the assassination. Some say it was she who invited
Booth to attend Lincoln's second inauguration, after which Booth
reportedly told his co-conspirators, "What an excellent
chance I had to kill him then."
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13. Where
is Traveler?
Traveller,
Robert E. Lee's beloved horse, is buried outside the chapel
of Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. Originally
named "Jeff Davis," he was a Tennessee Walking Horse
purchased by Lee in 1861. Traveler and Lee were together throughout
the war, both retiring to Lexington afterward.
After Lee's
death, Traveler became a local celebrity. Even today visitors
to Traveler's grave remember him by leaving sugar cubes on his
tombstone. (Visit Fort
Ward's web site to learn about other Civil War mascots,
even Robert E. Lee's little known pet hen!)
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12. What
is a sockdolager?
One who
strikes a heavy or decisive blow. Our winner tells us the word
is similar in nature to other Americanisms such as "hornswoggle"
and "skedaddle." Sockdolager combines the word "sock"
meaning a blow and "doxology" a hymn of praise sung
at the end of a church service. The Civil War connection comes
in because it was spoken in the play, Our American Cousin, performed
the night of April 14, 1865.
It was
just following the line, "I guess I know enough to turn
you inside out, you sockdologising old man-trap!" that
John Wilkes Booth fired at President Lincoln. Some say Booth
timed his action with the audience's laughter, believing it
would muffle the sound of the shot and the ensuing confusion.
Knowing what the word means, could it be that Booth fired at
that moment because he believed he was striking a decisive blow
for the South?
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11. Who is
the only Confederate general with a statue in the District of
Columbia?
Albert
Pike
While there are several in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol,
the only outdoor statue in the District of Columbia of a Confederate
general was erected to honor Albert Pike. (Thanks to our subscribers
who recognized our error in not specifying "outdoor statue.")
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10. Who said,
"The office of the President of the United States is not
fit for a gentleman!"?
President
James Buchanan
This rather obscure but very telling quote was found in Margaret
Leech's classic Civil War study, Reveille in Washington. In
discussing Buchanan's final, and very sad days as president,
she says:
"The
old politician from Pennsylvania was timid, not treacherous.
In ordinary times, he might have retired with honor at the close
of his term. He had been caught in the glare of a crucial moment
of history. Even his Southern friends, to whom he had conceded
so much, had turned against him. At a dinner party at Mr. Corcoran's,
General Scott witnessed the passionate outbursts of Senator
Toombs and Senator Benjamin, who cursed the President, along
with Major Anderson and the Union. In the end, his sundered
country was united only in the opinion that Mr. Buchanan was
a coward and a fool. Sinking heavily into a chair in Scott's
headquarters, the President exclaimed, "The office of President
of the United States is not fit for a gentleman to hold!"
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9. Which
Civil War general was nicknamed "Kill Cavalry"?
Union General
Hugh Judson Kilpatrick.
Kilpatrick was born to a poor family, but finagled his way into
West Point. This ambition and self-promotion drove him to become
a ruthless cavalry commander, as well as profiteer, adulterer,
and would-be assassin. The last was the result of an unsuccessful
raid on Richmond in which his cohort, Ulrich Dahlgren, was found
carrying papers indicating they had gone to Richmond to murder
Jefferson Davis and his cabinet. In spite of his notoriety,
General Sherman chose Kilpatrick as cavalry chief during his
march to the sea. Sherman said, "I know Kilpatrick is one
hell of a damned fool, but I want just that sort of man to command
my cavalry."
Kilpatrick also had political ambitions, and hoped that his
Civil War exploits would lead to public office. Instead, he
was twiced-named Ambassador to Chile, where he continued a life
of scandals and adulterous affairs. He died from kidney disease
at aged forty-five. If they'd had penicillin, he might have
become President!
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8. He had
an unusual and renown Civil War career, but for what is Holt
Collier most famous?
The Teddy
Bear. (Visit the original Teddy Bear at the Smithsonian.
Holt Collier
was born a slave in Mississippi in 1846 (the year varies in
several accounts). His experiences included being a Confederate
cavalry scout (when he accompanied his master and joined the
Confederate Army at age 12), involvement in wild-west gunfights,
and hunting trips to Mexico and Alaska. But Collier was best
known as a bear hunter.
When President
Theodore Roosevelt went to Mississippi in 1902 to hunt bear,
Collier was selected to guide the party. Collier assured the
President that he would bag a bear, "if I have to tie one
up and bring it to you." Well, he practically did. Collier
found a bear, but the President was elsewhere during the hunt.
Collier tied it to a tree, brought Roosevelt to it, and everyone
waited for the shot to be fired.
Although
considered a conservationist, Roosevelt had recently been criticized
for his cruelty in killing big game animals for sport. Roosevelt
declined to shoot the tied-up bear. Among the reporters in the
hunting party was cartoonist Clifford Berryman who satirized
the scene for the Washington Post. A toy maker saw the cartoon
and hit upon the idea of turning the bear into a stuffed toy.
The rest, as we at the Smithsonian say, is history, which you
can find at: http://www.americaslibrary.gov/pages/aa_roosevelt_bears_1.html
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7. Who said
Sir Walter Scott was the cause of the Civil War?
Mark Twain.
Although a Southerner himself, Samuel Clemens reviled the chauvinist
attitude held by many Southerners as originated and perpetuated
by the popular novels of Sir Walter Scott. In Life on the Mississippi,
Clemens says,
"Then comes Sir Walter Scott with his enchantments…
It was Sir Walter that made every gentleman in the South a Major
or a Colonel, or a General or a Judge, before the war; and it
was he, also, that made these gentlemen value these bogus decorations.
… Sir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern character,
as it existed before the war, that he is in great measure responsible
for the war."
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6. Who did
both Northern and Southern soldiers call the "graybacks"?
"Graybacks"
was the common name for Pediculus humanus corporis and Pediculus
vestimenti--body lice. Per Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary,
they are "transmitted by direct contact or use of infested
wearing apparel, occurs as a result of crowding or unhygienic
conditions." John Billings' Hardtack and Coffee, describes
"skirmishes" with this gray enemy and how every Civil
War soldier battled with them, regardless of rank or pre-war
social ranking.
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5. How did
Pea Patch Island get its name?
Pea Patch
Island, located in the Delaware River, was named after a Colonial-era
legend that a boat loaded with peas ran aground on a river shoal.
The cargo of peas capsized and soon sprouted. Pea Patch Island
is the location of Fort Delaware, used as a Confederate prisoner
of war camp after the Battle of Gettysburg.
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4. (In commemoration
of the 140th anniversary of the August 2, 1861 passage of the
first income tax legislation): How did the Form 1040 get its
name?
It received
its name just by chance. The number 1040 was the next number
up in the system of sequential numbering of forms developed
by the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
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3. What is
the origin of the word "deadline?"
The "deadline"
was what the prisoners called the perimeter of Andersonville.
Any prisoner crossing that line would risk being shot. Like
many military phrases, American business has adapted the term
to mean the time limit to complete a job-often at the risk of
being shot if that limit is crossed!
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2. What was
the original name proposed for the State of West Virginia?
Kanawha.
In August 1861, pro-Union western Virginians took steps to separate
from the remainder of Virginia and create a new state known
as Kanawha. Their constitutional convention met and in 1862
sent Congress a constitution for the new state, but with the
proposed name changed from Kanawha to West Virginia. West Virginia
was admitted to the Union as the 35th state on June 20, 1863.
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1. What is
the origin of the word Antietam?
A Delaware
Indian word meaning "swift flowing water."
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