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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 was the title of the play during which Abraham Lincoln was assassinated?
(a) Our American Cousin.
(b) Oklahoma.
(c) Our Town.
(d) The Importance of Being Earnest.

2. What monument in Washington, D.C. had recently been completed at the time of Lincoln's inauguration in 1865?
(a) The Smithsonian Museum.
(b) The Capitol dome.
(c) The Washington monument.
(d) The Lincoln monument.

3. What rule was in place about the bridge that John Wilkes Booth intended to cross on his escape into Maryland?
(a) Anyone crossing the bridge had to pay a toll.
(b) Any crossing the bridge had to dismount his horse and walk his horse over the bridge.
(c) No one was allowed to cross the bridge after dark.
(d) No one was allowed to take a horse over the bridge.

4. Who was the only actor on stage when Booth made his leap from the balcony?
(a) Harry Hawk.
(b) Charles Leale.
(c) Clara Harris.
(d) Fanny Seward.

5. What wound did Lewis Powell successfully inflict upon William Seward, though he did not succeed in killing him?
(a) He shot William Seward's ear.
(b) He shot William Seward in the leg.
(c) He cut a deep wound in William Seward's arm.
(d) He cut a deep wound in William Seward's face.

Short Answer Questions

1. 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?

2. Where was Abraham Lincoln taken after he was moved from Ford's Theater?

3. What words did John Wilkes Booth shout after killing Lincoln and after shouting the state motto of Virginia?

4. What fraction of the casualties during the Civil War died due to disease?

5. After the Petersen boarding house was deemed the temporary War Department headquarters, to whom was the first telegram out of the office addressed?

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. What danger to Lewis Powell's assassination plot lurked in William Seward's room of which Lewis Powell was unaware?

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 tone does James L. Swanson use in second paragraph of Chapter I when he writes, "The very next day, the tyrant Abraham Lincoln had visited his captive prize and had the nerve to sit behind the desk occupied by the first and last president of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis"? (2)

5. Over what issues was the American Civil War fought?

6. How did Mary Todd Lincoln's letter to the Ford Theater's proprietors unwittingly help Abraham Lincoln's would-be assassins complete their goal?

7. How did the North celebrate when Richmond, Virginia fell to Union forces on April 3, 1865?

8. 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.

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

10. How does James L. Swanson create suspense in the scene when Lewis Powell attempts to assassinate William Seward?

(see the answer keys)

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