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Part 1 - Generals of the ACW (25 Questions)






Question 1

Who was the ACW general firstly graduated from West Point?

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Question 2

In 1859 congressman (and future Union Maj. Gen.) Daniel Edgar Sickles shot his wife Teresa and her lover, Philip Barton Key (son of Francis Scott “The Star Spangled Banner” Key) in plain day in Washington, but was acquainted by reason of temporary insanity (the first time in American jurisprudence such a plea had ever been made) thanks to his very able attorney Edwin M. Stanton (future Secretary of War). True, False?

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Question 3

The following is a fairly typical excerpt from a mathematics book published in 1859 by J. B. Lippincott and Company and written by a future ACW general. Who?

"The field of battle at Buena Vista is 6 1/2 miles from Saltillo. Two Indiana volunteers ran away from the field of battle at the same time; one ran half a mile per hour faster than the other, and reached Saltillo 5 minutes and 54 6/11 seconds sooner than the other. Required their respective rates of travel".

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Question 4

Six officers of the Fort Sumter garrison later became generals. Who are they?

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Question 5

When Benjamin F. Butler and Nathaniel P. Banks were made Union generals, they lacked any military qualification whatsoever. Their appointments occurred only because they were powerful Democrat bosses. True, False?

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Question 6

The Italian national hero Giuseppe Garibaldi offered himself in 1861 as Union general, but Lincoln politely turned down the offer. True, False?

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Question 7

One future Confederate general took part in the battle of First Bull Run as an Union officer, is resignation still pending. Which one?

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Question 8

At the battle of Shiloh, all six division commander of the Union Army of the Tennessee had a common civilian link. Which one?

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Question 9

One Confederate general had previously been an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. Who?

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Question 10

George Armstrong Custer, promoted at age 23, was the youngest general officer of the ACW. True, False?

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Question 11

Amongst countless deserters in both armies, the highest-ranking one was a General. Which One?

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Question 12

Ambrose E. Burnside and Joseph Hooker both received the Thanks of Congress. True, False?

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Question 13

Lieut. Gen. Richard Taylor commanded the Army of Tennessee during 1865. True, False?

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Question 14

At the end of the war, Lieutenant-General Nathan B. Forrest was the top-ranking cavalry officer of both armies. True, False?

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Question 15

Which was the highest-rank general to die in battle during the ACW?

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Question 16

One ACW general was killed in a duel with one of his colleagues during the war. True, False?

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Question 17

A Union and a Confederate generals killed each other in a close battle encounter. True, False?

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Question 18

After the war a number of ex-Confederate generals soldiered on in the Egyptian army, one being actually killed in action there. True, False?

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Question 19

After the war, amongst the following ones, who was retained in the regular US Army as a general?

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Question 20

After the war, who was the only non-West Pointer retained in the regular US Army as a general?

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Question 21

After the war, amongst the 17 generals retained in service in the regular US army, who had had the highest rank at the start of the war?

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Question 22

After the war, amongst the following former generals, who served as Governor?

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Question 23

William T. Sherman, thoroughly opposed to the political world of Washington, never served in a political role. True, False?

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Question 24

One former Confederate general served in the 1898 Spanish-American War as a corps commander. Who?

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Question 25

Which ACW generals did present themselves as presidential candidates without being elected?

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Part 2 - Other Personalities of the ACW (13 Questions)






Question 26

At least two pre-war West Point cadets who failed to graduate along with a number of future ACW generals became later very outstanding artists. Who are they?

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Question 27

During his tenure as Pierce’s Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis tried to introduce camels in American military use. True, False?

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Question 28

James Buchanan had an unique distinction between all US Presidents (apart from "seeing a part of his nation seceding from the rest", of course). Which one?

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Question 29

Abraham Lincoln and George B. McClellan were acquaintances before the ACW. True, False?

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Question 30

One of the group of men who first interrogated the wounded John Brown after his capture at Harper’s Ferry was Clement L. Vallandigham, later to became the archetypal Copperhead. True, False?

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Question 31

Why Private Daniel Hough has a place in history?

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Question 32

One young Southern private present at the battle of Shiloh acquired later a world-wide fame in a different continent. Who?

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Question 33

The ancestors of the World War II generals Douglas McArthur and George Patton III met each other on an ACW battlefield, fighting on different sides. True, False?

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Question 34

Who were the future U.S. Presidents serving in the army during the war?

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Question 35

A number of women were actually enrolled in both armies, the majority of them pretending to be men but a few others in "undisguised" form. Which one (pending future discoveries!) held the top military rank?

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Question 36

Thomas Bragg, brother of Braxton, briefly served as Confederate Secretary of the Interior. True, False?

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Question 37

Elizabeth Cary, one of the three famous Cary Belles who animated Richmond social life during the war, thereafter became one of the early leaders of the battle for women’s franchise. True, False?

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Question 38

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote a book about the ACW. True, False?

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Part 3 - Navies of the ACW (15 Questions)






Question 39

Some years before the ACW an experimental gun exploded on board a USN ship crowded with personalities, killing both the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of State and narrowly missing the President. True, False?

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Question 40

Which was the first ironclad ship built in America?

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Question 41

Shortly before Secession, the USN was engaged in a big military expedition against a foreign nation. Which one?

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Question 42

When a future ACW Union rear admiral entered the USN in 1817 at the age of eleven, family connections (the father being Chief Clerk of the Navy Department) managed to get his warrant as midshipman predated to 1812, so that he gained five years seniority, which meant he was a naval officer from the age of six. Who?

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Question 43

During the ACW an admiral attained the rank of army general too. True, False?

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Question 44

Some ships taken by the Confederates at the opening of the hostilities were renamed: USS Merrimac became CSS Virginia, USS United States became CSS Confederate States, and so on. Did the Union too change the pre-war name of any of its major battleship?

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Question 45

During the ACW the U.S. Navy bought two Italian warships. True, False?

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Question 46

The yacht America, whose capture of the Queen’s Cup (afterwards, America’s Cup) in 1851 began the famed series of naval races, was employed both as a blockade runner and as a USN patrol ship during the ACW. True, False?

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Question 47

Which was the biggest ship built for the USN during the war?

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Question 48

Which was the biggest ship built for the CSN during the war?

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Question 49

In case of war against England, the U.S. Navy had a secret weapon: a partially built, big battleship waiting in a yard on the shore of Lake Ontario, ready to be completed at short notice. True, false?

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Question 50

After the fall of Fort Henry on 6 February 1862, only a thing prevented the US fleet from ascending the Tennessee river up to Chattanooga and Knoxville to join the Union sympathizers there. Which one?

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Question 51

As every reader knows, the CSS H. L. Hunley sank the USS Housatonic before Charleston, and sank itself (for the third – and last - time in its career) in the bargain. Although not the first submarine devised or built in the world, this was the first one to be employed in battle against enemy ships. True, False?

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Question 52

The sea-going ironclad CSS Stonewall, built in France and briefly operating in 1865 before being interned in Havana, ended her career in the Haitian Navy. True, False?

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Question 53

The most famous “phantom ship” of the world, the Mary Celeste (also spelt Marie Celeste), was a blockade-runner that left Charleston in 1863 and was found later drifting in the middle of the Mediterranean, everything on board in perfect order but crewless, the last note on the ship log being months old. True, False?

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Part 4 - Weapons of the ACW (5 Questions)






Question 54

The famous Tredegar Foundry (a.k.a. Tredegar Iron Works) of Richmond cast more than 1,600 artillery pieces before 1865. True, False?

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Question 55

At the start of the war, the Americans had had a breech-loading rifle in common usage for more than 10 years before the ACW. True, False?

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Question 56

By far the biggest artillery pieces of the ACW were the two models of 20-inch smoothbore (the 116,000-pd Rodman and the 97,000-pd Dahlgren). Some of these were later sold to another country. Which one?

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Question 57

Which were the biggest artillery pieces employed by the Confederates during the war?

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Question 58

Some of the readers may have seen the movie "Wild Wild West" with its funny steampunk machines. Still, the story has some truth in it: a steam-operated self-propelled armoured-carriage machine-gun was really built during the ACW. True, False?

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Part 5 - Units of the ACW (10 Questions)






Question 59

Amongst the Northern states and territories, the one contributing less was the Idaho Territory. This sparse-populated land furnished just 100 men. True, False?

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Question 60

The Confederate state that furnished less men for the Southern armies was Maryland. True, false?

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Question 61

The 39th New York, "Garibaldi Guards", wore the distinctive plumed cap made famous by Garibaldi's Italian volunteers in their epic 1860 campaign. True, False?

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Question 62

The 84th Tennessee Infantry was the highest-numbered southern regiment of the war. True, False?

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Question 63

A company composed of American Indians served with the Army of the Potomac. True, False?

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Question 64

Of the Texas regiments organized for Confederate service, the cavalry ones were more than twice than the infantry ones. True, False?

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Question 65

Some of the regiments and battalions raised in the South were identified as 1st (2nd, 3td, etc.) Confederate, without reference to any particular State. These units were part of the Confederate Regular (instead of Volunteer) Army, and the men were enrolled on a long-term professional basis mirroring the Union Regulars. True, False?

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Question 66

One of the Confederate brigades holding honorific name was the Laurel Brigade, being the old Stuart's (then Fitzugh Lee’s – Wickham’s) brigade: 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Virginia Cavalry. Its men had their hats decorated with laurel leaves. True, False?

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Question 67

Both sides raised units entirely from enemy prisoners of war, and both sides used them in combat. True, False?

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Question 68

The 1st Cherokee Mounted Rifles Regiment, formed by pro-Confederate Indians in 1861, had the distinction of being the only ACW organized military body of troops to do a particular action. Which one?

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Part 6 - Actions of the ACW (5 Questions)






Question 69

Antietam was the ACW battle with the highest number of casualties. True, False?

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Question 70

The raid of Lt. Bennett H. Young on St. Albans, Vt. of 19 October 1864 was the northernmost military action of the ACW. True, False?

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Question 71

On 25 November 1864 Confederate secret agents attempted (very awkwardly) to burn New York. Which building was the major casualty?

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Question 72

At the closing of the hostilities, the Confederates still owned only a single open-sea major port. Which one?

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Question 73

The last organized Confederate group laid down arms on 26 June 1865, when Brig. Gen. Stand Watie surrendered his Cherokee brigade. True, False?

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Part 7 - Odds and Ends (7 Questions)






Question 74

Which was the biggest city south of Mason-Dixon line in 1860?

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Question 75

In New Jersey there were people legally held as slaves during the ACW. True, False?

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Question 76

Assuming the Confederacy had survived, on what day would the presidency of Davis have ended?

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Question 77

The Constitution of the Confederate States, contrary to the U.S. one, prohibited a President to serve for a second mandate. True, False?

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Question 78

As Monroe had done with the Republic of Liberia, Lincoln too attempted to establish a free Negro nation. Where?

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Question 79

Representatives from the Indian Nations sat in the Confederate Congress in Richmond. True, False?

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Question 80

How many stars had the Union flag during the ACW?

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