Monthly Archives: April 2017

Quiz for June 27, 2017

Civil War Quiz: What Do You Know About the Post War Era and Reconstruction?

Q#1 – On May 2, 1865, still-president of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis held a Council of War in Abbeville, South Carolina. What was the purpose of this meeting and what was its outcome?

Q#2 – What was the estimated amount of debt incurred by the Southern States by the end of the war?

Q#3 – Southern Negroes were given a promise regarding their ability to own land on former plantations where they had worked as slaves. What was the name of this promise?

Q#4 –What name did President Andrew Johnson give to his post war plan for the nation? He did not call it Reconstruction.

Q#5 – In the years immediately following the Civil War, Southern legislatures began to pass discriminatory laws designed to preserve white supremacy. What were these laws called?

Q#6 – In response to President Andrew Johnson’s pro-Southern bias regarding his plans for treatment of the South specifically as it related to Negroes, Radical Republicans crafted and were successful in getting what amendment added to the US Constitution?

Q#7 – What was the most significant effect of the Reconstruction Act of 1867 passed over President Johnson’s veto?

Q#8 – During the first years of the Reconstruction period, approximately how many US soldiers were stationed in the South to enforce martial law?

Q#9 – What was the name given by the pro-Democratic Party newspapers for the state constitutional conventions held in 1867 throughout the South?

Q#10 – Through the various Reconstructions actions initiated by Radical Republicans to enable blacks to obtain elected political office, what Southern state was the first to elect a black person as Governor during Reconstruction?

Q#10 – How many articles of impeachment were filed against President Andrew Johnson in 1868? What were the three topics that the articles dealt with?

Q#12 – In the presidential election of 1868 won by Ulysses S. Grant, who was the Democratic Party’s candidate?

Q#13 – The Ku Klux Klan is the best known organization that used terror tactics against blacks. What was the name of the News Orleans-based organization that adopted similar terrorist tactics against blacks?

Q#14 – In the Spring of 1871, Congress passed the Enforcement Act in response to growing acts of terror by white supremacist groups in the South. What powers did this Act give President Grant ?

Q#15 – What was the last southern state to be readmitted to the Union?

Meeting of May 30, 2017

John Herberich on “Nathan Bedford Forrest and the 4th United States Cavalry”

As the only Regular Cavalry regiment in the Western Theater, the 4th Cavalry became the primary nemesis of Forrest’s (and Wheeler’s) cavalry – from the earliest contact at Fort Donelson to the final cavalry charge at Selma, AL, with the final, tragic conclusion during the last week of the war.

Meeting Minutes May 2017

Quiz for May 30, 2017

Civil War Quiz – What Did The Northern Home Front Have to Deal With?

Q#1 – What was the estimated population of the northern states at the beginning of the Civil War?

Q#2 – The Civil War did not stifle immigration into the North. On average, how many people immigrated each year into the northern states?

Q#3 – The war caused a significant split in the Democratic Party. What two factions were created as a result of the split?

Q#4 – While many northerners were against slavery as being immoral, what was the prevailing opinion of Negroes by people living in the North?

Q#5 – At the beginning of the Civil War, what was the existing debt owed northern merchants by people and companies from the South?

Q#6 – The fear that the North would lose the Civil War mostly by financial default through the loss of the South as customers never really materialized – why?

Q#7 – To pay for the war, Congress began to print money as did the Confederate Congress. However, why was the North able to avoid the ruinous levels of inflation that beleaguered the South?

Q#8 – What inventions greatly improved the North’s agricultural capacity?

Q#9 – What discovery just prior to the war in 1859 provided the North with a source of income and wealth that helped pay for the cost of the Civil War?

Q#10 – When Congress passed legislation in 1862 authorizing conscription and the draft of men into military service, what were the age limits?

Q#11 – What was the justification provided by Congress for the $300 “commutation fee,” which allowed a person to be excused from the military service?

Q#12 – What was an unexpected adverse side effect of the draft?

Q#13 – What organization was founded with the assistance of Mary Livermore and George Templeton Strong to support sick and wounded soldiers of the U.S. Army during the American Civil War?

Q#14 – The elections of 1862 both for the House of Representatives and governors in six states were extremely volatile and divisive. What was the narrow margin that President Lincoln’s Republican party retained its role as majority party in the House?

Q#15 – What two major Northern military victories in the late summer/early fall of 1864 sealed Lincoln’s re-election bid?