Chasing Lincoln's Killer
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50 free Chasing Lincoln's Killer trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Chasing Lincoln's Killer is the young readers' account of the twelve days in April 1865 when John Wilkes Booth was the most wanted man in America. It reads like a thriller, but every name, place and close call in it is real, which is why the book has become a classroom favourite. This quiz follows the book's path. It starts with the plot and the night at the theater, moves through the escape on horseback, the helpers and hiding places along the back roads, and the final standoff, then finishes with the trial and the epilogue: what became of the conspirators, the pursuers and the people who sat in the president's box. It is written for students checking their reading before a test, for teachers who want a ready-made review, and for history fans who think they know the story. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches something.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Why was the dying Abraham Lincoln laid diagonally across a boardinghouse bed on the night he was shot?
He was too tall
He was too tall for the small bed in the back bedroom, so Lincoln lay corner to corner through the night and died there the next morning.
Q 02In which Roman tragedy by Shakespeare did John Wilkes Booth share a stage with his two actor brothers?
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar brought the three Booth brothers together just once, in November 1864, and John Wilkes played Mark Antony rather than one of the assassins.
Q 03On which Christian holy day in April 1865 was Abraham Lincoln shot while watching a comedy?
Good Friday
Good Friday gave the mourning a religious cast: Lincoln died the next morning, and Easter Sunday sermons a day later praised him from the pulpit.
Q 04Which territory did the Secretary of State stabbed on the night Lincoln was shot later buy for the United States?
Alaska
Alaska cost the United States $7.2 million in 1867, a deal struck by a man who still carried the knife scars from that night.
Q 05Which comedy by the English playwright Tom Taylor was Abraham Lincoln watching when he was shot?
Our American Cousin
Our American Cousin was a farce about a rough-mannered Yankee claiming an English estate, and Booth knew it well enough to fire during a sure laugh.
Q 06Which cavalry sergeant, a hatter by trade, shot John Wilkes Booth through a crack in a burning barn wall?
Boston Corbett
Boston Corbett stepped forward and admitted firing the shot himself, was hailed as a hero, and received about $1,650 of the reward money.
Q 07Which Washington boardinghouse keeper became the first woman executed by the United States federal government?
Mary Surratt
Mary Surratt went to her death despite a plea for mercy signed by five of the nine men who had just convicted her.
Q 08Which Union general was advertised as Abraham Lincoln's guest in the theater box but turned the invitation down?
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant stayed away partly because his wife, Julia, was on poor terms with Mary Lincoln, and Booth had meant to stab him after firing.
Q 09What did John Wilkes Booth first plot to do to Abraham Lincoln in the months before the shooting?
Kidnap him
Kidnap him and trade him for Confederate prisoners was the plan, but on the day Booth's men lay in wait on a country road, Lincoln never came.
Q 10Which Maryland doctor treated the fugitive John Wilkes Booth hours after the shooting and was later imprisoned?
Samuel Mudd
Samuel Mudd had met Booth the year before, a link that helped convict him, and he escaped execution by the narrowest possible margin.
Q 11At which Washington playhouse, where John Wilkes Booth had starred himself, was Abraham Lincoln shot?
Ford's Theatre
Ford's Theatre was familiar ground to the killer, who had been one of the first leading men to appear there after it opened.
Q 12Which Secretary of War ran the search for John Wilkes Booth, then the largest in American history?
Edwin Stanton
Edwin Stanton personally directed thousands of troops and put $50,000 on Booth's head, with $25,000 more for each of two accomplices.
Q 13Which river did John Wilkes Booth cross in a small boat at night to flee Maryland for the South?
The Potomac
Q 21Which pharmacist's assistant rode with John Wilkes Booth for twelve days and gave himself up at the barn?
David Herold
David Herold was an avid hunter who knew the back country, and earlier that night he had guided another attacker to the Secretary of State's door.
Q 22Which Confederate veteran, wounded at Gettysburg, forced his way into the Secretary of State's home with a knife?
Lewis Powell
Lewis Powell's revolver misfired, so he clubbed his target's son senseless with it and went on with a blade.
Q 23Which German-born conspirator was sent to kill the vice president but drank in a hotel bar instead?
George Atzerodt
The Potomac crossing had to wait days for a safe night, and Booth set out in a boat supplied by a local Confederate agent.
Q 14Which kind of pocket pistol, named after a Philadelphia gunsmith, did John Wilkes Booth fire at Abraham Lincoln?
A derringer
A derringer held a single bullet, so Booth had one chance and carried a knife for anyone who tried to stop him.
Q 15Which injury, splinted by a country doctor, slowed John Wilkes Booth throughout his days on the run?
A broken leg
A broken leg, the left fibula, left Booth hobbling on homemade crutches, unable to move fast or far without help.
Q 16Which vice president escaped harm at a Washington hotel when the man sent to kill him lost his nerve?
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson was woken at his hotel with news of the shooting, and by the next morning the man marked for death was president.
Q 17Which Secretary of State was stabbed in his sickbed by one of Booth's men on the night Lincoln was shot?
William Seward
William Seward survived because a splint fitted to his injured jaw kept the blade from reaching a vein in his throat.
Q 18Which historian, born on Abraham Lincoln's own birthday, wrote the young-adult history Chasing Lincoln's Killer?
James L. Swanson
James L. Swanson was born on February 12, 1959, exactly 150 years after Lincoln, and made the assassination his main field of research.
Q 19To which Illinois city did a funeral train carry Abraham Lincoln's body after crossing seven states?
Springfield
Springfield lay at the end of a 1,700-mile route lined by millions of mourners, with bonfires, bands and hymns beside the tracks.
Q 20Where did Robert E. Lee surrender his army just five days before Abraham Lincoln was shot?
Appomattox
Appomattox seemed to settle the war, and Booth, who had spent months scheming to help the South, turned to a far more desperate plan.
George Atzerodt had asked the hotel bartender where his target was staying, a question that raised suspicion the next day and put police on his trail.
Q 24Which Army major, slashed by Booth's knife in the presidential box, went on to kill his own wife years later?
Henry Rathbone
Henry Rathbone married Clara Harris, the fiancée who sat beside him that night, and in 1883 he killed her and was declared insane.
Q 25Which star of the play reached the presidential box and cradled the wounded Abraham Lincoln's head in her lap?
Laura Keene
Laura Keene had been the first powerful female theater manager in New York, and Lincoln's blood stained the cuff of her dress that night.
Q 26To which building across Tenth Street was the wounded Abraham Lincoln carried from the theater to die?
Petersen House
Petersen House belonged to a German tailor who let out rooms, and one of his lodgers waved the men carrying the president inside.
Q 27Which Confederate river agent fed the hidden John Wilkes Booth for days and finally led him to a boat?
Thomas Jones
Thomas Jones heard a detective offer $100,000 for word of the fugitives while they lay hidden nearby, kept silent, and told the story in a book in 1893.
Q 28Which remote island fortress in the Gulf of Mexico held the four Lincoln conspirators who were spared execution?
Fort Jefferson
Fort Jefferson, a vast brick stronghold 68 miles west of Key West, released three of the four with pardons in 1869; the fourth had died there.
Q 29Chasing Lincoln's Killer is a young readers' version of which bestselling adult history by the same author?
Manhunt
Manhunt won an Edgar Award for crime writing, and in 2024 it became a television miniseries with the Secretary of War as its hero.
Q 30Which state's Latin motto is John Wilkes Booth said to have shouted after shooting Abraham Lincoln?
Virginia
Virginia's motto means "thus always to tyrants", and Booth wrote in his diary that he cried it out, casting himself as a liberator.