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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How many nights in total did John Wilkes Booth and David Herold spend in the pine forest before they made the attempt to get to Virginia?

2. What story did John Wilkes Booth tell Richard H. Garrett about his predicament?

3. To whose house did John Wilkes Booth and David Herold flee once Dr. Samuel Mudd had insisted they leave his farm?

4. When John Garrett tried to throw John Wilkes Booth and George Atzerodt out of the house, what was his reason?

5. What was the name of the fisherman who agreed to ferry John Wilkes Booth and David Herold across the Rappahannock River?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was the reason for Andrew Johnson's lack of a formal public inaugural address upon his ascendency to the presidency?

2. Once she was sent from the room in which Abraham Lincoln lay dying, why did Marty Todd Lincoln never see her husband's face again?

3. Why was the decision made to shoot the healthy horses belonging to John Wilkes Booth and David Herold?

4. What is James L. Swanson's purpose in including the detail, "He was too far from Washington to hear the ringing bells of the city's churches tolling in mourning," (60) when describing John Wikes Booth's arrival at the farm of Dr. Samuel Mudd?

5. To what cause does James L. Swanson attribute the decision by doctors to perform an autopsy on Abraham Lincoln after his death?

6. Though John Wilkes Booth was angry at the newspapers for suppressing his written explanation for why he had killed Abraham Lincoln that he had given to his actor friend, what was the truth surrounding why his letter had not been published?

7. What was Dr. Samuel Mudd's response when he learned that Abraham Lincoln had been killed and that John Wilkes Booth had been the assassin?

8. Within the entirety of the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth, what event acted as the closest the manhunters ever came to capturing John Wilkes Booth, besides the last standoff at Garrett Farm?

9. What was the first major break in the manhunt for the assassins and why was it significant?

10. How does James L. Swanson use the appeal of pathos to craft the portrait of Edman Spangler, the 39-year-old stagehand from Ford's Theater?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does the author use sensory details in order to paint a vivid portrait of the historical events he depicts within the novel? Discuss at least two scenes that include extensive use of sensory details and pull quotes from these scenes to support your claim.

Essay Topic 2

Examine James L. Swanson's use of characterization methods to portray Abraham Lincoln. How does he help the reader to know who Abraham Lincoln was as a person, both before and after his murder? What effect do these characterization methods have on the book's inherent themes and messages? Use concrete details from the text to support your claims.

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the author's decision to include a variety of primary documents within the text. What purpose did he have when including images of real documents such as newspaper clippings, photographs, pamphlets, and other ephemera? Back up your strong, specific claim about the author's use of primary documents with concrete details from the ephemera he includes in the book.

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This section contains 1,567 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample