Q 01/05

What did 11-year-old Grace Bedell urge Abraham Lincoln to do in a letter sent weeks before the 1860 election?

A) Wear a taller hat

B) Grow a beard

C) Smile in his portraits

D) Visit her school

Answer · why

B) Grow a beard

Grow a beard, she wrote, promising to win over her brothers' votes; Lincoln became the first bearded president and met her on his train trip to Washin...

Q 02/05

Which frontier nickname, recalling Abraham Lincoln's youth of manual labor, became his 1860 campaign image?

A) The Rail Splitter

B) The Flatboatman

C) The Pathfinder

D) The Prairie Lawyer

Answer · why

A) The Rail Splitter

The Rail Splitter image took off when a young politician paraded old fence rails into the Illinois state convention, a week before the national one.

Q 03/05

Which state, whose legislature still chose its electors, was first to secede after Abraham Lincoln's 1860 win?

A) Mississippi

B) North Carolina

C) South Carolina

D) Alabama

Answer · why

C) South Carolina

South Carolina voted to leave on December 20, 1860, about six weeks after the election; its electors, picked without any popular vote, had gone to Bre...

Q 04/05

Which federal outpost did Confederate guns shell in April 1861, opening the Civil War weeks into Lincoln's term?

A) Fort Pickens

B) Fort Monroe

C) Fort Moultrie

D) Fort Sumter

Answer · why

D) Fort Sumter

Fort Sumter's 85 defenders gave up after 34 hours of shelling that killed no one on either side; Lincoln's call for troops then pushed four more state...

Q 05/05

Which Mississippi senator, who drew votes at the 1860 Democratic convention, became the Confederacy's president?

A) Jefferson Davis

B) Alexander Stephens

C) Robert Toombs

D) Judah P. Benjamin

Answer · why

A) Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Davis was elected on February 9, 1861, by delegates of the seceded states, nearly a month before Lincoln took the oath in Washington.