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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What did David Herold say was a condition of helping Lewis Powell with the plot to assassinate William Seward?
(a) He did not want to have to clean up any mess.
(b) He did not want to drive the carriage.
(c) He did not want to enact the plot during daylight hours.
(d) He did not want to kill anybody himself.

2. Who was the only other person in William Seward's bedroom besides William Seward and Fanny Seward?
(a) Major Rathbone, who was guarding William Seward.
(b) Sergeant Robinson, who was serving as a nurse to William Seward.
(c) Ashton Lovelier, William Seward's main doctor.
(d) Frederick Seward, who was helping Fanny to nurse their father William Seward.

3. What injury did John Wilkes Booth sustain in his leap from the Presidential box to the theater stage?
(a) A broken ankle.
(b) A broken wrist.
(c) A broken nose.
(d) A broken leg.

4. What query did Laura Keene make of Dr. Charles Leale after she gained entry to the President's box where Lincoln lay dying?
(a) She asked if she could gather some of Abraham Lincoln's blood.
(b) She asked if she could have Abraham Lincoln's boots.
(c) She asked if she could cut a lock of Abraham Lincoln's hair.
(d) She asked if she could cradle Abraham Lincoln's head in her lap.

5. What literary device is James L. Swanson using when he refers to John Wilkes Booth's passion for lost causes?
(a) Personification.
(b) Foreshadowing.
(c) Hyperbole.
(d) Simile.

Short Answer Questions

1. What piece of medical equipment did Dr. Charles Leale send a hospital steward to retrieve so that he could work on Lincoln's brain in hopes of saving him?

2. Who ordered that Mary Todd Lincoln be removed from Abraham Lincoln's bedside and proclaimed that she would not be allowed in again?

3. Where did Lewis Powell sleep on the two nights subsequent to the events at William Seward's house?

4. On the afternoon on the day of Lincoln's assassination, what plans did Abraham Lincoln reveal to Mary Todd Lincoln about their future after his second term as president was complete?

5. Who asked Dr. Charles Leale to treat him first, before the doctor tended to Abraham Lincoln?

Short Essay Questions

1. In the scene of Abraham Lincoln being moved from the theater, how does James L. Swanson get across the message of how damaging people's morbid curiosity can be?

2. How does James L. Swanson use the words of Mary Todd Lincoln's dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckley, to foreshadow the coming death of Abraham Lincoln?

3. What action did David Herold take at the scene of William Seward's home that James L. Swanson imagines to have inspired the ire of John Wilkes Booth?

4. What is the author's purpose in relating the events of Mary Lincoln Todd's and Abraham Lincoln's afternoon together on the date of the assassination?

5. What qualities of William Seward's situation caused him to chosen by the assassins as the third target in the assassination plot, in addition to Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson?

6. What methods does James L. Swanson use to convey the chaotic nature of the scene within Ford's Theater after John Wilkes Booth had escaped?

7. How does James L. Swanson characterize the personality of the actress Laura Keene, who was present at the scene of John Wilkes Booth's shooting of Abraham Lincoln.

8. How does James L. Swanson demonstrate Fanny Seward's courage and ferocity within the scene of Lewis Powell's attempt to take her father's life?

9. Since John Wilkes Booth could have easily gained an audience with President Abraham Lincoln in the Executive Mansion using his famous face, why did he not just assassinate him in such a meeting?

10. Who was the only audience member in Ford's Theater to chase after John Wilkes Booth and why did no one else follow him?

(see the answer keys)

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