Doug's Darkworld

This is a quiz about the American Civil War, a war that fascinates many Americans to this day and was possibly the most important event in American history. It was certainly the most important, and bloodiest, war in American history. As always I have tried to come up with questions that test actual comprehension of the war and important facets thereof, while avoiding trivial or unnecessarily detail oriented questions.

This war was the first great war of the industrial era and thus is important for understanding of the history of warfare in general. For example the railroad made it possible to supply armies that would have been unimaginable in earlier eras, the Confederate armed forces were the largest armed forces that any nation in history had ever fielded, larger than Napoleon’s armies or the Roman Empire’s armies. The Union military was even larger of course, so this at the time this was a war between the two largest armies in history!

The American Civil War Quiz

Ten questions, pencil and paper only I am afraid.

1. The civil war was fought because:
A: The North wanted to free the slaves and keep the Union intact.
B: The South was asserting state’s rights.
C: Economic rivalry between the North and South.
D: The south attacked Fort Sumter.
E: All of the above.

2. The first major battle of the Civil War was:
A: The Battle of Gettysburg.
B: The Battle of Bull Run.
C: The Battle of Shiloh.
D: The Battle of Lexington.

3. The first major bloody battle of the Civil War was:
A: The Battle of Shiloh.
B: The Battle of Gettysburg.
C: The siege of Fort Sumter.
D: The Battle of Chancellorsville.

4. This bloody battle gave Lincoln cause to issue the Emancipation Proclamation:
A: The Battle of Vicksburg.
B: The Battle of Shiloh.
C: The Battle of Antietam.
D: The Battle of Gettysburg.

5. This decisive battle cut the South in half and was the beginning of the end for the Confederacy:
A: New Orleans
B: Gettysburg
C: Vicksburg
D: Mobile

6. This horrific miscalculation has been called the “high water mark of the Confederacy”:
A: Pickett’s charge.
B: The battle of Antietam.
C: Sherman’s march to the sea.
D: The sinking of the Lusitania.

7. This event was the death knell for the south and a predecessor to the blitzkrieg:
A: The burning of Richmond.
B: Sherman’s march to the sea.
C: The siege of Vicksburg.
D: The Von Schlieffen Plan.

8: The war lasted as long as it did because Lincoln insisted that the south surrender unconditionally.
A. True
B. False

9. The war ended when:
A: Lincoln was assassinated.
B: Fort Sumter surrendered.
C: Lee surrendered at Appomattox.
D: Nat Turner’s slave revolt overwhelmed the confederacy.

10: Bonus trivia question, what is the item pictured above and what is its significance?

The answers can be found here.

(The image at the top of the page precedes 1923 and is thus Public Domain under US copyright law.)