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This Gettysburg trivia quiz has 70 free questions with answers and covers the three days of July 1863 hour by hour: the cavalry stand on the first morning, the fishhook line, Little Round Top and Devil's Den, Culp's Hill, the great charge on the third afternoon and the retreat to the Potomac. It then moves on to the Gettysburg Address, from the two-hour oration that preceded it to the surviving handwritten copies and the newspaper that called it dishwatery, and finishes with the town and battlefield today: the national cemetery, the Cyclorama, the Eisenhower farm, the peace memorial and the four-hour 1993 film. It is built for Civil War buffs, teachers running a unit on the battle, visitors planning a trip to the park, and anyone hosting a history round. Easy questions cover the commanders and the famous speech; the hard ones ask who fired the first shot, which local man died on his own family's hill, and where the only photograph of Lincoln at the dedication came from. Every answer has been checked against a reliable source and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
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Q 01In which year was the Battle of Gettysburg fought?
1863
The three-day fight of July 1-3 came almost exactly two years into the war, and the loss of a major Mississippi River fortress the next day made it a double blow for the Confederacy.
Q 02Gettysburg lies in which US state?
Pennsylvania
Lee's second invasion of the North carried the war onto free soil; the borough sits only about ten miles above the Maryland line.
Q 03Which general commanded the Confederate army that marched into the North and fought at Gettysburg?
Robert E. Lee
The Army of Northern Virginia had never lost a major battle under him; five weeks after this one he offered his resignation to Jefferson Davis, who quickly refused it.
Q 04Who commanded the Union army at Gettysburg, having taken command only three days earlier?
George Meade
Lincoln accepted Hooker's resignation on June 28 and handed the army to its V Corps commander, who then had to fight the biggest battle of the war almost immediately.
Q 05Roughly how many combined casualties did the two armies suffer over the three days?
About 50,000
The Union lost 23,055 men and the Confederates roughly 23,000 to 28,000, making it the costliest battle in American history up to that point.
Q 06Which besieged Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863?
Vicksburg
The two defeats came 920 miles apart on the same day, which is why historians usually pair them as the war's turning point.
Q 07Which Union cavalry general held the ridges northwest of Gettysburg on July 1 until infantry arrived?
John Buford
His dismounted troopers with breech-loading carbines bought the hours that let the Union seize the high ground south of town; he died of typhoid that December.
Q 08Which Union corps commander was shot and killed early on July 1 while directing troops near Herbst Woods?
John F. Reynolds
He was the highest-ranking officer killed at Gettysburg, and command of the field passed briefly to Doubleday and then to Winfield Scott Hancock.
Q 09With which discretionary phrase did Lee order Ewell to take Cemetery Hill on July 1?
"if practicable"
Ewell, used to Stonewall Jackson's blunt orders, decided the assault was not practicable and never made it, a decision historians still call the great missed opportunity of the battle.
Q 10The Union defensive line on July 2 is popularly described as resembling what?
A fishhook
The line ran from Culp's Hill to Cemetery Hill and then south along Cemetery Ridge, giving the Union interior lines to shift troops quickly.
Q 11Which Union corps commander pushed III Corps to the Peach Orchard against orders and lost a leg?
Daniel Sickles
The former congressman kept the shattered leg bone and donated it to the Army Medical Museum, reportedly visiting it on the anniversary for years afterward.
Q 12Which Union engineer rushed troops onto Little Round Top minutes before Hood's Confederates arrived?
Gouverneur K. Warren
A statue of him now stands on the summit; the brigade he diverted arrived about ten minutes ahead of the attackers.
Q 13Which regiment on the extreme left of the Union line at Little Round Top finished with a bayonet charge?
20th Maine
Q 21How far did the Confederate infantry have to cross open ground to reach the Union line on Cemetery Ridge?
About three-quarters of a mile
The ground undulates just enough that the columns disappeared from Union gunners' view at moments; the fields today are kept open so visitors can walk the route.
Q 22Which cap-on-sword Confederate brigadier made the deepest penetration of the Union line at Pickett's Charge?
Lewis Armistead
The troops that shot him were commanded by his prewar friend leading the Union II Corps, and his Bible was later delivered to that friend's wife.
Q 23The 80-yard bend in the low stone wall where the July 3 assault crested became known afterward as what?
Its colonel, a rhetoric professor from Bowdoin College, received the Medal of Honor for the defense some thirty years later.
Q 14Colonel William Oates's 15th infantry regiment, which repeatedly assaulted Little Round Top, came from which state?
Alabama
Oates's men had marched more than 20 miles that day and had sent their canteens off to be filled just before the attack, so they fought thirsty for ninety minutes.
Q 15Which 62-year-old brigadier's breastworks held Culp's Hill against a much larger force on the night of July 2?
George S. Greene
A former West Point professor and civil engineer, his single brigade held while the rest of the corps had marched off to reinforce the Union left.
Q 16Wesley Culp, a Gettysburg native killed near his relative's land on July 3, served in which regiment?
2nd Virginia Infantry (Confederate)
His brother William fought for the Union in the 87th Pennsylvania, so the two Culps ended up on opposite sides of a hill that bore their family name.
Q 17Which regiment did the II Corps commander order into an 'almost suicidal' bayonet charge on Cemetery Ridge on July 2?
1st Minnesota
The regiment lost most of the roughly 260 men who made the charge, one of the highest loss rates of any Union regiment in a single action of the war.
Q 18According to local lore, Devil's Den got its name before the battle from what?
A large snake living in the rocks
The 'Devil' was said to be a huge reptile that lived in the crevices for a quarter century; after the battle the boulder field became a favorite spot for staged photographs of dead sharpshooters.
Q 19Roughly how many Confederate soldiers stepped off in Pickett's Charge on the afternoon of July 3?
About 12,000
The attackers came from three divisions, and roughly half of them became casualties in under an hour.
Q 20Although popularly named for a division commander, overall command of the July 3 assault was given to which Confederate corps commander, who doubted it could succeed?
James Longstreet
Some historians prefer the name Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Assault to spread the credit; the reluctant commander tried to leave the final order to his artillery chief.
The Angle
The nearby copse of trees is traditionally called the aiming point, though some park historians argue Lee's real target was Ziegler's Grove, 300 yards north.
Q 24As the Confederate lines advanced on July 3, waiting Union soldiers began chanting the name of which earlier battle, a Union disaster of December 1862?
Fredericksburg
There the Union had made repeated hopeless charges up a slope at an entrenched Confederate line; now the roles were exactly reversed.
Q 25Told by Lee to rally his men after the charge, what did George Pickett allegedly reply?
"General, I have no division."
Pickett's after-action report was reportedly so bitter that Lee ordered it destroyed, and no copy has ever been found.
Q 26In which year was Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing, killed at Gettysburg, awarded the Medal of Honor?
2014
He was hit three times, the last in the mouth, yet stayed with his last two cannons; the award came 151 years later after a campaign by a Wisconsin constituent.
Q 27Which Confederate cavalry commander was absent with his best brigades for the first two days at Gettysburg?
J.E.B. Stuart
He rode all the way around the Union army and only reached Gettysburg around noon on July 2, by which point the battle's shape was already set.
Q 28Which future Little Bighorn commander helped repulse Confederate cavalry east of town on July 3?
George Armstrong Custer
He had been a brigadier general for less than a week; some of his Michigan troopers carried Spencer repeating rifles that multiplied their firepower.
Q 29Historians doubt the tale that the battle began with Confederates seeking what supply?
Shoes
The tale traces to Henry Heth's memoirs; skeptics note that Jubal Early's troops had already passed through days earlier and would have known there were no shoe factories.
Q 30Which Union unit's black Hardee hats 'astonished' Confederates advancing through Herbst Woods on July 1?
The Iron Brigade
Formed from Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin regiments, it captured brigadier James Archer that morning, the first general officer of Lee's army ever taken prisoner.