Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Andrew Johnson trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Andrew Johnson never spent a day in school. Apprenticed to a tailor at ten, he ran away, taught himself to read, and talked his way from Greeneville alderman to governor, senator and, in 1865, vice president to Abraham Lincoln. Six weeks later Lincoln was dead and the tailor was president, facing the hardest question in American history: what to do with the defeated South. His answer put him on a collision course with Congress. This quiz covers the Black Codes, the vetoes that were overridden, the disastrous "Swing Around the Circle" tour, the Tenure of Office Act, the firing of Edwin Stanton and the impeachment trial that fell one vote short. It also asks about the odd corners of his story: the drunken inaugural speech, the Alaska purchase, the would-be assassin who got drunk instead, and the comeback that made him the only ex-president ever elected to the Senate. Fifty questions, easy to hard, every answer sourced and every explanation adding one more detail.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Andrew Johnson was which number president of the United States?
17th
He served from 1865 to 1869 after succeeding Abraham Lincoln, whose number he followed in office as well as in the vice presidency.
Q 02In which city was Andrew Johnson born?
Raleigh, North Carolina
He was born in a two-room shack in 1808 and reminded voters of his humble origins throughout his career.
Q 03To which trade was Johnson apprenticed as a boy?
Tailor
He later bragged that "my work never ripped or gave way", and was known for impeccably tailored clothes.
Q 04What reward did James Selby offer for the return of his runaway apprentices?
Ten dollars
Selby's ad offered the full sum "for Andrew Johnson alone"; the brothers fled to Carthage, North Carolina.
Q 05Johnson settled and opened his shop in which Tennessee town?
Greeneville
He fell in love with the town on sight and later bought the land where he first camped, planting a tree there.
Q 06Johnson's wife Eliza taught him which skills?
Mathematics and writing
He married the 16-year-old shoemaker's daughter in 1827; the justice of the peace was a cousin of Lincoln's father.
Q 07Who officiated at Johnson's 1827 wedding?
Mordecai Lincoln
The justice of the peace was first cousin to Thomas Lincoln, whose son Abraham would later pick Johnson as running mate.
Q 08How old was Johnson when he married Eliza McCardle?
18
Eliza was 16; the couple stayed married almost 50 years and had five children.
Q 09How many enslaved people did Johnson own at most, by the account of his biographers?
At least ten
He bought his first, Dolly, in 1843, and freed his slaves on August 8, 1863; they stayed on as paid servants.
Q 10On what date in 1863 did Johnson free his own slaves?
August 8
Freed Tennesseans later gave him a watch inscribed "for his Untiring Energy in the Cause of Freedom".
Q 11Which measure to grant 160 acres to settlers did Johnson champion for years in Congress?
Homestead Bill
It finally passed in 1862 after Southern legislators had left; he had first introduced it in the 1840s.
Q 12What did a Nashville newspaper call the Whig redrawing of Johnson's district in 1852?
Henry-mandering
Named for Whig leader Gustavus Henry, it led Johnson to lament "I have no political future" — then run for governor.
Q 13As governor, Johnson helped found Tennessee's first what?
Public school system
Reforms also included the state public library and regular state fairs for craftsmen and farmers.
Q 21How did Lincoln defend Johnson after the inaugural debacle?
"Andy ain't a drunkard"
Lincoln said he had known Johnson for years and that he had simply "made a bad slip the other day".
Q 22Why did Johnson survive the night of Lincoln's assassination?
His assigned assassin got drunk
George Atzerodt was meant to kill him at the Kirkwood House but lost his nerve in a bar; he was hanged that July.
Q 23Who swore Johnson in as president on April 15, 1865?
Salmon P. Chase
The chief justice presided between 10 and 11 a.m., hours after Lincoln died at 7:22.
Q 14In 1857 a train derailment seriously damaged which part of Johnson's body?
His right arm
The injury, suffered returning from Washington, troubled him for years afterward.
Q 15Johnson was the only senator from a seceding state to do what?
Keep his Senate seat
He fled Tennessee through the Cumberland Gap, where his party was shot at, leaving his family in Greeneville.
Q 16What did Johnson sometimes place on the lectern while campaigning against secession?
A gun
He faced threats and actual assaults; his eastern region of Tennessee was largely against leaving the Union.
Q 17In 1862 Lincoln appointed Johnson to which post?
Military Governor of Tennessee
The Senate confirmed him with the rank of brigadier general; the Confederates turned his home into a military hospital.
Q 18Under what banner did Lincoln and Johnson run in 1864?
National Union Party
The name was meant to sound a theme of unity; Johnson was nominated on the second ballot with 491 votes.
Q 19Whom did Johnson replace as Lincoln's running mate in 1864?
Hannibal Hamlin
Hamlin was healthy, competent and willing to run again; in 1875 he was sworn into the Senate beside Johnson.
Q 20What did Johnson ask Hamlin for just before his 1865 inaugural speech?
Whiskey
Hung over from a party the night before, he took two stiff drinks and delivered a rambling, near-incoherent address.
Q 24Who left a calling card for Johnson at the Kirkwood House on the day Lincoln was shot?
John Wilkes Booth
The card read "Don't wish to disturb you. Are you at home?" and has fueled conspiracy theories ever since.
Q 25Johnson's 1865 amnesty excluded ex-rebels holding property worth at least how much?
$20,000
The proclamation came with unanimous Cabinet backing but said nothing about black suffrage or freedmen's rights.
Q 26Southern states passed which laws to bind freedmen to farms and arrest them for vagrancy?
Black Codes
Northerners saw them as placing African Americans barely above slavery and turned against Johnson's leniency.
Q 27In his Washington's Birthday speech of 1866, how often did Johnson refer to himself?
Over 200 times
He also accused Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner and Wendell Phillips of plotting to assassinate him.
Q 28Which 1866 veto by Johnson was the first on a major bill ever overridden by Congress?
Civil Rights Act
Eric Foner calls it "the most disastrous miscalculation of his political career"; moderates gave up on him.
Q 29Which constitutional amendment, granting citizenship to former slaves, did Johnson oppose?
Fourteenth
Tennessee ratified it anyway, and Congress promptly seated its delegation, embarrassing the president.
Q 30What was the nickname of Johnson's disastrous 1866 speaking tour?
Swing Around the Circle
He compared himself to Jesus, argued with hecklers, and watched Republicans win a landslide that fall.