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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSIn the spring of 1865, the American Civil War is grinding toward its end as President Abraham Lincoln watches from the sidelines while General Ulysses S. Grant pursues General Robert E. Lee's starving Confederate army across Virginia. Lincoln has survived four years of war, hundreds of death threats, and his own consuming grief, and he now stands on the edge of the thing he wants most: a reunited nation healed without vengeance. But while Richmond falls and Lee surrenders at Appomattox, a famous actor named John Wilkes Booth is watching closely, his hatred of Lincoln and the Union hardening into a plan. Booth assembles a small ring of conspirators and, on the night of April 14, 1865, puts the plan into motion at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. This book tells the story of those final weeks, minute by minute, tracking both the man determined to save the country and the man determined to destroy him.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Killing Lincoln
SPOILERSEvery one of these has the same answer, and that is the point. In a real battle the question is read aloud with a dozen other books in play, and students have a few seconds to place it. Here is what a battle might ask about Killing Lincoln. Use them as a quiz, a trivia round, or BOTB practice.
Where in the book they come from
- Early in the book
In what book do starving rebel soldiers pry open boxcars hoping for food and find only ammunition crates?
✓ Answer
Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly
At Amelia Court House in Killing Lincoln, Lee's exhausted troops marched forty miles expecting rations only to find 200 crates of ammunition, 164 cartons of artillery harnesses, and 96 carts. The food they expected had been looted earlier in Richmond.
- First half
In what book does a president yell to a band to play "Dixie" because it is now Union property?
✓ Answer
Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly
In Killing Lincoln, after Lee's surrender the celebrating crowd demands a speech at the White House. The president instead spots the Navy Yard brass band and calls out that the Confederate anthem has been fairly captured. "It is now our property," he tells the cheering crowd.
- First half
In what book does a German immigrant carriage repairer find himself blackmailed into joining a triple murder plot?
✓ Answer
Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly
In Killing Lincoln, George Atzerodt was recruited as a smuggler for the original kidnapping plot. When Booth shifts to murder, Atzerodt tries to back out. Booth traps him by reminding him they had shared horses, leaving witnesses to tie Atzerodt to the conspiracy.
- Second half
In what book does an odd-jobs boy nicknamed Peanut John hold the reins of an assassin's horse behind a theater?
✓ Answer
Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly
When stagehand Ned Spangler refuses to leave his post, Joseph "Peanut John" Burroughs is conscripted to hold Booth's mare in the alley behind Ford's. Booth later kicks the boy aside on his way to escape.
- Second half
In what book does the attacker leap to a stage and snag his spur in a draped American flag?
✓ Answer
Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly
Booth vaults from the state box but his right spur tangles in the thick flag bunting, breaking his fibula on landing. The fall transforms a planned heroic exit into the injury that dooms his escape.
- Near the end
In what book do prisoners awaiting trial wear thick padded hoods with cotton stuffed over their eyelids?
✓ Answer
Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly
Stanton orders the conspirators imprisoned aboard the Montauk to wear stifling hoods so they cannot see or hear one another. The treatment bloats and disfigures Mary Surratt and her co-defendants by the time they appear in court.
