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    Civil War Trivia Questions With Answers

    Trivia quiz with answers about the American Civil War

     

    Civil War Trivia Questions With Answers

    What was the American Civil War?
    A: It was a war fought in the United States (U.S.) from 1861 to 1865.

    Largely as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people, when did the war break out?
    A: In April 1861, when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

    This occurred shortly after United States President Abraham Lincoln was what?
    A: Inaugurated.

    The loyalists of the Union in the North proclaimed what?
    A: Support for the Constitution.

    They faced secessionists of the Confederate States in the South, who advocated for states' rights to do what?
    A: Uphold slavery.

    Among the 34 U.S. states in February 1861, how many Southern slave states individually declared their secession from the country to form the Confederate States of America?
    A: Seven.

    The Confederacy grew to include how many states?
    A: Eleven, all of them slaveholding.

     
    The Confederacy was never diplomatically recognized by whom?
    A: United States government, nor by any foreign country.

    The states that remained loyal to the U.S. were known as what?
    A: The Union.

    The Union and Confederacy quickly raised volunteer and conscription     armies that fought mostly where?
    A: In the South.

    Intense combat left 620,000 to 750,000 people dead, more than the number of U.S.     military deaths in what?
    A: All other wars combined.

    Much of the South's infrastructure was destroyed, especially the what?
    A: Transportation systems.

    Most academic scholars identify what, as a central cause of the war?
    A: Slavery.

    In the 1850s, what was the central source of escalating     political tension?
    A: Slavery.
     
    The Republican Party was determined to prevent any spread of what?
    A: Slavery.

    Many Southern leaders had threatened “what", if the Republican candidate, Lincoln, won the 1860 election?
    A: Secession.

    Most northern soldiers were largely indifferent on the subject of what?
    A: Slavery.

    Confederates fought the war largely to protect a southern society of which slavery was what?
    A: An integral part.

    Southern whites believed that the emancipation of slaves would destroy the South's economy, due to what?
    A: The large amount of capital invested in slaves and fears of integrating the ex-slave black population.

    Slavery was illegal in much of the North, having been outlawed when?
    A: In the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

    It was also fading in the border states and in Southern cities, but it was expanding where?
    A: In the highly profitable cotton districts of the rural South and Southwest.

     
    The South argued that each state had the right to what?
    A: Secede at any time.

    Northerners rejected that notion as opposed to the will of the Founding Fathers who said they were setting up a what?
    A: A perpetual union.

    Slave owners preferred what kind of labor?
    A: Low-cost manual labor with no mechanization.

    Northern manufacturing interests supported tariffs and protectionism while southern planters demanded what?
    A: Free trade.

    While the South moved towards a Southern nationalism,     leaders in the North were also becoming more what?
    A: Nationally minded.

    The election of Lincoln caused the legislature of South Carolina to do what?
    A: To call a state convention to consider secession.

    The convention summoned unanimously voted to what?
    A: Secede on December 20, 1860.
     
    The "cotton states" of Mississippi , Florida , Alabama , Georgia , Louisiana , and Texas followed suit, seceding when?
    A: In January and February 1861.

    The small U.S. Navy of 1861 was rapidly enlarged to what?
    A: 6,000 officers and 45,000 men in 1865, with 671 vessels, having a tonnage of 510,396.

    What was its mission was to what?
    A: Blockade Confederate ports, take control of the river system, defend against Confederate raiders on the high seas, and be ready for a possible war with the British Royal Navy.

    Meanwhile, the main riverine war was fought where?
    A: In the West, where a series of major rivers gave access to the Confederate heartland.

    The U.S. Navy eventually gained control of what rivers?
    A: The Red, Tennessee, Cumberland, Mississippi, and Ohio rivers.

    In the East, the Navy supplied and moved     army forces about, and occasionally shelled what?
    A: Confederate installations.

    What happened to the Southern economy during the war?
    A: It nearly collapsed.

    Most historians agree that the blockade was a major factor in what?
    A: Ruining the Confederate economy.

    Practically, the entire Confederate cotton crop was useless (although it was sold to Union traders), costing the Confederacy it’s what?
    A: Main source of income.

    To fight an offensive war, the Confederacy purchased ships from Britain, converted them to warships, and did what?
    A: Raided American merchant ships in the Atlantic and     Pacific oceans .

     
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