Small Talk-Trivia

Victory Celebrations

By Stephen Davis · Originally published June 2018 · pp. 35–46

1. After he received the report from Brig. Gen. Ulysses Grant that he had captured an important Confederate fort in Tennessee, Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck, Grant’s superior in St. Louis, ordered two dozen baskets of champagne to be opened for the rejoicing crowds. To his clerk he added, “And I want you to give public notice that I shall suspect the loyalty of any male resident of St. Louis who can be found sober enough to walk or speak within the next half hour.” What Confederate fort had Grant captured? 2. Charlestonians celebrated the ratification of South Carolina’s ordinance of secession, Dec. 20, 1860. Crowds started bonfires, boys lit fireworks, militia companies fired salutes, bands played. One sixty-six-year-old Virginian was in the city at the time. “As I now write, after 10 p.m.,” he entered in his diary that night, “I hear the distant sounds of rejoicing, with the music of a military band, as if there was no thought of ceasing.” Who was this ardent Southern nationalist (who committed suicide after Lee’s surrender)?

2. On Sept. 3, 1864, President Lincoln ordered that on September 7, 100 guns at the Washington Arsenal would fire in celebration of Federals forces’ capture of what important Southern city?

3. After this early Confederate victory in Virginia, the Mobile Register predicted that the Union army would “never again advance beyond cannon shot of Washington.” The Richmond Whig judged that the Southerners’ triumph augured “the breakdown of the Yankee race.” What Confederate victory brought all of this on?

4. Following the surrender of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, Southern soldiers marched between Union troop lines to stack their arms. One Confederate recalled that the Federals were remarkably restrained, exhibiting no signs of celebration. “We suffered no insult in any way from any of our enemies. No other army in the world would have been so considerate of a foe.” Where did this surrender occur?

5. After Bedford Forrest forced the surrender of a Union mounted force west of Rome, Georgia, in May 1863, the townsfolk of Rome “went almost mad with joy,” according to Forrest biographer Andrew Lytle. The Romans gave Forrest a fine horse, and opened their smoke houses and pantries to reward his troopers. Who was the Union commander whose raid had thus failed?

6. This is ironic: after a major Union defeat in Virginia, “certain bars in Washington and New York were even said to be promoting a new concoction dubbed ‘Hooker’s Retreat.’” What was the battle which led to those Northern bars concocting a cocktail that commemorated the retreat of the Army of the Potomac?

7. “Lee advanced his columns of infantry from the covers, and made several attempts to carry the lines by assault; but each successive attempt was repulsed with terrible havoc to their ranks…. Nearly the entire brigade of Gen. Dick Garnett surrendered and GARNETT himself, wounded, barely made his escape. Longstreet was mortally wounded and captured. He is reported to have died an hour afterward…. We took upward of three thousand prisoners….The rebel prisoners report that Gen. A. P. Hill was killed outright upon the field, and that their officers suffered far greater casualties than in any previous engagement.” Thus the New York Times on its front page of July 6, 1863 celebrated the repulse of what famous Confederate charge? 9. “General Thomas had attacked the enemy with success at Nashville. With two telegrams in his hand, Eckert ran downstairs, and jumped into the ambulance which was always kept at the door of the War Department. His shout of good news at the War Secretary’s house on K Street brought hurrahs from Mr. and Mrs. Stanton and the children. Stanton and Eckert drove to the White House, to call the happy tidings to the President, standing tall and ghostly in his nightshirt at the stairhead, with a lighted candle in his hand.” The “happy tidings” came from the battle of Nashville, Tennessee, fought on what date? 10. BY TELEGRAPH. Massachusetts Regiment Captured. Hard Fighting at Baltimore. Gov. Hicks telegraphs to Abe Lincoln. State Flag raised in Maryland. Andrew Johnson Insane. Delaware Aroused.

This headline above appeared on the front page of the Atlanta Intelligencer, April 23, 1861, reporting a riot by Southern sympathizers in Baltimore against what Massachusetts regiment marching through the city on April 19? Answers found on page 46. Steve Davis is the Civil War News Book Review Editor. He can be contacted by email at: [email protected]

Small Talk Trivia Answers 1. Fort Donelson, surrendered by Confederate Brig. Gen. Simon Buckner on Feb. 16, 1862. The champagne anecdote is in Stephen E. Ambrose, Halleck: Lincoln’s Chief of Staff (1962), p. 33. 2. Edmund Ruffin (1794-1865). The quote comes from William Kauffman Scarborough, ed., The Diary of Edmund Ruffin, Vol. 1 (1972), pp. 512-13. 3. Atlanta. The same order also called for a hundred guns fired on September 5 in celebration of Farragut’s victory in the battle of Mobile, August 5. (Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 7 [1953], p. 532.) 4. Manassas, July 21, 1861. Quotes are from James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (1988), p. 347. 5. Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Recollections come from Chris M. Calkins, The Appomattox Campaign March 29–April 9, 1865 (1997), p. 192. 6. Union Col. Abel Streight. The celebration in Rome is described in Andrew Lytle, Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company (1931), pp. 174-75. 7. The battle of Chancellorsville, May 1863. The quote comes from Noah Andre Trudeau, Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage (2002), p. 9. 8. The charge of Pickett’s, Pettigrew’s, and Trimble’s divisions at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863. And no, General James Longstreet was not mortally wounded and captured; nor was General Powell Hill killed outright upon the field. 9. December 15–16, 1864. The excerpt is taken from Margaret Leech, Reveille in Washington 1860–1865 (1941), p. 354. 10. The Sixth Massachusetts Infantry, which was not “captured.” (And no, Vice President Johnson was not “insane,” even if Delaware was “aroused.”)