Co. Aytch
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40 free Co. Aytch trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Co. Aytch is the Civil War as an ordinary Confederate infantryman remembered it twenty years later. Sam Watkins of Tennessee marched with one regiment from 1861 to the end, and he wrote about hunger, fear, pranks and grief with a humor that historians and filmmakers have borrowed ever since. This quiz follows the memoir from the early marches in Virginia through the great battles of the western theater to the final surrender. It covers the commanders Watkins admired and the one he could not forgive, the comrades he lost, life in camp and on picket, and how the memoir itself came to be published. It suits students reading the memoir for a history or literature class, Civil War readers testing their recall, and anyone curious about what the war looked like from the back of the line.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which filmmaker's 1990 documentary The Civil War quotes Sam Watkins, the author of Co. Aytch?
Ken Burns
Ken Burns featured and quoted Watkins in the series, almost ninety years after the old soldier died in 1901.
Q 02In Co. Aytch, which general, visiting camp in Virginia, looks to Sam Watkins like a kindly grandfather?
Robert E. Lee
Robert E. Lee rode in alone and unarmed, and when he left, Watkins ran to fetch his horse and was thanked with 'my son'.
Q 03The title of Sam Watkins's memoir Co. Aytch spells out which letter of his infantry company?
H
H was the letter: Watkins served in Company H of the First Tennessee Infantry and was one of only seven of its original members left at the surrender.
Q 04In Co. Aytch, what pet named Fed, short for Confederacy, does Tom Tuck carry in a haversack?
A game rooster
A game rooster named Fed crowed the regiment awake at daybreak until he lost a cock fight at Atlanta and went into the frying pan.
Q 05In Co. Aytch, starving troops on Missionary Ridge beg which visiting dignitary for something to eat?
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Davis galloped down the line with a large staff while the men shouted that they were hungry and begged him to send food.
Q 06In Co. Aytch, Sam Watkins's regiment reaches Virginia by train one night too late for which battle?
First Manassas
First Manassas had been won that very day, and the men envied the wounded, sure the war would end before they saw a Yankee.
Q 07In Co. Aytch, what does Sam Watkins bayonet on picket by the Potomac, sure it is a Yankee?
A stump
A stump took the bayonet through and through after it ignored his challenge in the snow; he tells it as a typical private's memory of the war.
Q 08In Co. Aytch, soldiers go rat hunting on hearing that which besieged city's garrison lived on rats?
Vicksburg
Vicksburg's defenders were said to be eating rats, so Watkins's mess caught and fried one; he lost his appetite at the last moment.
Q 09In Co. Aytch, mutinous soldiers on the 1862 march to Romney curse which general as 'Fool Tom'?
Stonewall Jackson
Stonewall Jackson was blamed even for the weather, and in Watkins's telling he offered his resignation after the troops refused to march further.
Q 10Before it was printed as a book in 1882, in what form did Co. Aytch first reach readers?
A newspaper serial
A newspaper serial in his hometown paper, the Columbia Herald, came first, running from 1881 to 1882 before the columns were collected.
Q 11In Co. Aytch, which commanding general is called a merciless tyrant whom no soldier ever loved?
Braxton Bragg
Braxton Bragg had deserters shot, whipped and branded before the assembled army, Watkins recalls, and kept his men on short rations.
Q 12In Co. Aytch, which new commander wins the army over at Dalton with furloughs and fuller rations?
Joseph E. Johnston
Joseph E. Johnston also had whisky and tobacco issued twice a week, and Watkins believed any soldier under him would gladly have died for him.
Q 13In Co. Aytch, which state's soldiers are jeered with 'Flicker!', the call of the yellowhammer?
Alabama
Q 21In Co. Aytch, whose appointment to command the army before Atlanta makes thousands of men cry?
John Bell Hood
John Bell Hood was a brave soldier and a good man, in Watkins's verdict, but a failure as a general in every particular.
Q 22In Co. Aytch, whose rear-guard stand at Ringgold Gap is likened to the Spartans at Thermopylae?
Patrick Cleburne
Patrick Cleburne's division stopped the Union pursuit after Missionary Ridge in what Watkins calls the doggondest fight of the war.
Q 23In Co. Aytch, which Kentucky battle does Sam Watkins call the hardest and most evenly fought he saw?
Perryville
Alabama troops were called yellowhammers after the bird, so the Tennesseans imitated its call when a brigade gave way in front of them at Shiloh.
Q 14In Co. Aytch, what trick lets a soldier named Dornin win every louse race in camp at Tupelo?
Heating his plate
Heating his plate sent Dornin's louse scurrying off first every time, and he pocketed the stakes until the others found him out.
Q 15In Co. Aytch, what ends a visiting preacher's fiery war sermon in the woods before Chickamauga?
A runaway bull
A runaway bull, mad with fright, tore through the service, flattened the preacher and sent the hymnals flying in every direction.
Q 16In Co. Aytch, what has become of the eleven pickets the First Tennessee relieves at St. John's Run?
They had frozen to death
They had frozen to death at their posts, two of them still standing sentinel with loaded guns in their hands.
Q 17The subtitle of Co. Aytch compares Sam Watkins's memoir to which humble fairground attraction?
A side show
A side show of the big show is how the subtitle puts it: generals and historians had told the main event, and he would tell the rest.
Q 18In Co. Aytch, a Confederate law lets any man go home if he owns twenty of what?
Slaves
Slaves were what counted: the exemption for owners of twenty embittered the conscripts, and Watkins says it gave them the blues.
Q 19In Co. Aytch, what was the local name of Sam Watkins's company, raised around Columbia, Tennessee?
Maury Grays
The Maury Grays marched off with 120 men; when the company came home in 1864, Watkins counted just twelve of the originals.
Q 20In Co. Aytch, which general, known to his men as a bishop, is carried dead off a Georgia hilltop?
Leonidas Polk
Leonidas Polk was struck by a cannon shot while studying the Union lines through a field glass, and Watkins felt he had lost a friend.
Perryville cost the First Tennessee more than 350 killed and wounded, and Watkins came out with holes shot through his hat and cartridge box.
Q 24In Co. Aytch, the 'Dead Angle' held by the First Tennessee in June 1864 is part of which battle?
Kennesaw Mountain
Kennesaw Mountain left his arm bruised from wrist to shoulder: Watkins says he fired 120 rounds that day, swapping guns with dead comrades.
Q 25In Co. Aytch, which 1864 Tennessee battle is called the blackest page in the history of the war?
Franklin
Franklin killed or wounded thirteen Confederate generals by his count, and he wished he could tear the page from his memoirs and his memory.
Q 26In Co. Aytch, in which state does the First Tennessee stack its guns for the last time in 1865?
North Carolina
North Carolina saw the end at Greensboro, where Watkins says only sixty-five men were paroled of the 3,200 who had served in the regiment.
Q 27In Co. Aytch, what act at Atlanta earns Sam Watkins his promotion to fourth corporal?
Picking up a flag
Picking up a flag the charge had already swept past won him the stripes, and he admits he only wanted it to make a shirt.
Q 28In Co. Aytch, what kills ten soldiers kneeling at the mourners' bench during a camp revival?
A falling tree
A falling tree, left smoldering for days after a camp clean-up, crashed across the bench without warning during the evening service.
Q 29In Co. Aytch, what does an inspector find in Sergeant Horsley's knapsack instead of clothing?
Books
Books filled it, from Webster's dictionary to Ivanhoe and Les Misérables; Horsley carried literature for the whole regiment.
Q 30In Co. Aytch, what does Schwartz slip into Pfifer's knapsack in place of his hoarded beef tallow?
A rock
A rock of about thirty pounds rode on Pfifer's back all day; their captain then made Schwartz carry it for two days.