Famous Figures from American History Quiz

Answer: Civil War Union generals

George Thomas was born in Virginia in 1816 and graduated from West Point in 1840. He fought in the Mexican War and remained in the Army afterwards. Thomas stayed loyal to the Union when the Civil War broke out, alienating his family and suffering the mistrust of his fellow officers, but soon gained a reputation as a competent leader.

His stand at Chickamauga prevented a complete rout of the Union Army, and he went on to become one of the most effective commanders in the Western theater for the Union. Thomas died in 1870.

Answer: American inventors

Robert Fulton was born in the colony of Pennsylvania in 1765. An accomplished portrait and landscape artist as a young man, Fulton moved to England in 1786 and became interested in canal building and steam powered machines. He was commissioned by Napoleon to build a submarine in 1800, which was unsuccessful, and also designed mines for the British Royal Navy. Fulton returned to the U.S. in 1806 and soon designed the first successful steamboat, the "Clermont", in 1807. Fulton died of tuberculosis in 1815.

Answer: U.S. Women's Rights activists

Born Amelia Jenks in rural New York State in 1818, Bloomer was a schoolteacher and live-in nanny until she married Dexter Bloomer in 1840. Bloomer encouraged his wife to write for his small Seneca Falls, New York newspaper. She attended the 1848 Seneca Falls convention on women's rights, and begin editing her own newspaper, " The Lily", in 1849.

She became famous as an advocate of changes in women's dress, and a fashion of loose trousers became known as "Bloomers" after her. Bloomer died in 1894.

Answer: Wartime U.S. Secretaries of State

Born in rural New York in 1801, Seward became a lawyer and was elected to the New York State Senate, served two terms as Governor, and was a U.S. Senator from New York when he was appointed Secretary of State by President Lincoln. An ardent Unionist, Seward worked hard to keep Britain and France from aiding the Confederacy in the Civil War. Seward was wounded by one of John Wilkes Booth's accomplices the same night that Lincoln was assassinated. Seward later negotiated the treaty to purchase Alaska. Seward died in 1872.

Answer: Civil War Union generals

Phillip Sheridan was born in Albany, New York in 1831 and was appointed to West Point in 1848. On the outbreak of war in 1861, Sheridan was transferred to Missouri, seeing action at the Battles of Pea Ridge and Corinth in 1862. Sheridan was promoted to Colonel in May, 1862, and Major General in October, 1862. Grant gave Sheridan command of all Union cavalry in the Eastern theater in April, 1864, and he laid waste the Confederate "breadbasket" in the Shenandoah Valley.

Sheridan went on to fight in the Indian Wars, gaining a reputation for efficiency and cruelty towards the Native American people.

Sheridan died in 1888.

Answer: American inventors

Born in Massachusetts Colony in 1765, Eli Whitney graduated from Yale in 1792 and went to South Carolina, where he invented the cotton gin in 1793. Whitney's machine made the growing of cotton very profitable. He also advocated, but did not invent, the use of interchangeable parts while making muskets for the U.S. Army in 1798. Eli Whitney died in 1825.

Answer: U.S. Women's Rights activists

Susan B. Anthony was born in 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts, to a family of social reformers and abolitionists. Her family moved to New York when Susan was six years old, and she was taught by her father, a Quaker, to oppose wrong and agitate for change. Anthony was friends with such reformers as Frederick Douglass and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and worked for women's rights and the abolition of slavery.

She was famously arrested for trying to vote in 1872. Susan B. Anthony passed away in 1906.

Answer: U.S. Women's Rights activists

Born in Johnstown, New York in 1815 to a well-to-do family, Stanton was well educated for a woman of her time and was an abolitionist and women's rights advocate from her teens. She married fellow abolitionist Henry Stanton in 1840. Stanton was one of the organizers of the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention on Women's Rights and wrote the Declaration of Sentiments which outlined the movement's goals for equality. Stanton died in 1902.

Answer: U.S. Women's Rights activists

Born in 1818 in Massachusetts, Lucy Stone was a women's rights advocate from an early age, having witnessed first hand the plight of women who were subservient to their husbands or widowed and unable to make a living. Stone was the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree from Oberlin College in Ohio in 1847. Stone wrote and spoke extensively on both the abolition of slavery and women's rights up to her death in 1893.

Answer: American inventors

Born in Ohio in 1847, Edison was educated mostly by his mother, a former teacher, and only went to school for a few months. He developed hearing problems in his early teens and was almost completely deaf by the age of twenty. Edison began selling items on trains at the age of twelve, and later became a telegraph operator. Always a curious person, he set up his own laboratory in 1867.

It is estimated that he and his "invention factory" in Menlo Park, New Jersey obtained over 1,000 patents for their inventions. Thomas Edison died in 1931.

Answer: American inventors

Morse was born in Massachusetts in 1791 and graduated from Yale in 1810. A talented artist, Morse went to England in 1811 and met the renowned artist Benjamin West and was admitted to the Royal Society. Upon his return to the USA in 1815, Morse was one of the premier artists in the country.

In 1847, Morse improved on the design of the telegraph, making it cheaper to build and maintain, as well as inventing the code which bears his name and is still used today. Samuel Morse died in 1872.

Answer: Wartime U.S. Secretaries of State

James Monroe was born in Virginia colony in 1758. He served in the Continental Army during the Revolution, later becoming a lawyer, senator, and diplomat. Monroe served as Secretary of State under James Madison during the War of 1812, and won the Presidency in 1816.

He is most famous for the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which opposed European intervention in the Americas. Monroe was President for two terms and left office in 1825. James Monroe died in 1831.

Answer: Wartime U.S. Secretaries of State

John Sherman, born in Ohio in 1823, was the younger brother of Civil War General William T. Sherman. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1855, and the Senate in 1861. He also served as Treasury Secretary from 1877-1881. Appointed Secretary of State by President McKinley in 1897, Sherman tried to negotiate with Spain over Cuba, but his age and failing health meant that McKinley relied more on Sherman's assistant, William Day.

Sherman resigned on April 25, 1898, just days after the outbreak of war with Spain.

Sherman died in 1900.

Answer: Wartime U.S. Secretaries of State

James Buchanan, born in Pennsylvania in 1791, became a lawyer in 1812. After brief service in the militia during the War of 1812, he was elected a Pennsylvania state representative in 1814. He then served in the U.S. House and Senate, and as a diplomat, before becoming Secretary of State under President Polk in 1845.

The size of the country nearly doubled during his term, through the negotiations with Britain over the Oregon territory and the taking of land from Mexico after the Mexican War. Buchanan served as President from 1857-1861, and his perceived inaction led many to blame him for the Civil War.

He died in 1868.

Answer: Civil War Union generals

William Rosecrans, born in Ohio in 1819, graduated from West Point in 1842. He stayed on as a professor at the Point and did not see combat in the Mexican War. Rosecrans was appointed a Major General in 1861, and fought successfully in several engagements in the Eastern theater before being assigned to the Western theater in 1862. Though victorious in several battles, his performance was criticized by many. Rosecrans career was effectively ended by his defeat at Chickamauga in 1863, after which he was sent to command in Missouri.

He left the Army in 1866. Rosecrans died in 1898.

Answer: Civil War Union generals

George B. McClellan was born in Philadelphia in 1826. He graduated from West Point in 1846 and served in the Mexican War, being promoted to Brevet Captain. After the war he was assigned to various scouting and engineering duties before resigning from the Army in 1857. McClellan was in executive positions with two different railroad companies and was becoming involved in politics before he Civil War.

He was given command of Ohio volunteers in April, 1861. A brilliant organizer and trainer of troops, McClellan's battlefield performance was less than stellar, and he was replaced in November, 1862.

He resigned from the Army in 1864 and ran for President but lost to Lincoln. He was elected Governor of New Jersey in 1877 and served one term. McClellan died in 1885.