Trivia Game # 29 - Week 5

[hoosier]

Here are the questions for Week 5.

21. How many former U.S. presidents were still alive when Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated?

22. Which Confederate general rode a horse named King Philip?

23. What was a barbette?

24. The Order of the Heroes of America was an organization of Southerners loyal to the Union/disloyal to the Confederacy. What did its members wear to identify themselves?

25. (Two point question) Which Civil War engagement took place further east than any other?

Responses to the Week 5 questions will be due by 6 PM on Saturday, March 26.

Good luck!

 

[aggie80]

21. Given Lincoln's inauguration on 4 Mar 1861, I count five:
Martin Van Buren d. 24 Jul 1862
John Tyler d. 18 Jan 1862
Millard Fillmore d. 8 Mar 1874
Franklin Pierce d. 8 Oct 1869
James Buchanan d. 1 Jun 1868

22. Nathan Bedford Forrest

23. Found in fortifications it is a raised platform connected to the interior side of a parapet that allowed artillery to fire over the top of the parapet.

24. The Order of the Heroes of America identified themselves by wearing a red string on their lapels and thus were nicknamed the Red Strings and the 'Red-String Band." (This answer can be found on this site in a previous trivia question, it pays to read the archives!)

25. Well, I am not sure of the exact meaning of the question, but will contend that the most eastern Civil War Engagement was the destruction of the Alabama by the Kearsarge off the coast of Cherbourg, France. If one considers the Confederate Raider in the Pacific as being in the 'Far East' then their activities in the Aleutians could be a contender.

 

[traveller]

21. How many former U.S. presidents were still alive when Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated?

Not sure how to interpret the question so here goes:

At the time of Lincolns Inauguration these former presidents were still living.

Millard Fillmore
James Buchanan
Franklin Pierce
John Tyler
Martin Van Buren

But these former US Presidents were also alive at that time.

Abraham Lincoln
Ulysses S. Grant
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
James A. Garfield
Chester A. Arthur
Grover Cleveland
Benjamin Harrison
William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
William Howard Taft
Woodrow Wilson

22. Which Confederate general rode a horse named King Philip?

Favorite mount of CSA General Nathan Bedford Forrest....

23. What was a barbette?

A raised platform connected to the interior side of a parapet

24. The Order of the Heroes of America was an organization of Southerners loyal to the Union/disloyal to the Confederacy. What did its members wear to identify themselves?

red ribbons INCORRECT

25. (Two point question) Which Civil War engagement took place further east than any other?

Cherbourg, France, Kearsarge vs the Alabama

 

[hoosier]

Clarifications

Early responses have indicated that a couple of clarifications to the questions for Week 5 may be in order.

Regarding Question 21 - In asking this question, I am looking for the number of men who had been president before Lincoln and were still alive at the time of his inauguration. Obviously, there were a good many other men alive at the time who would go on to become president after Lincoln, and we can refer to such men today as "former" presidents, but those men should not be counted in the answer to this question.

Regarding Question 25 - The question has been raised - how far east is "east?"

Theoretically, if you start at any given longitudinal meridian, you can get to any other longitudinal meridian by going east. Thus, for example, it can truthfully be said that you can get to St. Louis, MO by going east from East St. Louis, IL. You have to travel about 24,999 miles east, but you can get there by going east.

However, I really don't want anyone to go more than halfway around the world in search of the correct answer to Question 25.

For Question 25, please use St. Louis, MO as a reference point, since it is approximately at 90 degrees West longitude. Any point that you could reach by traveling halfway around the world going east from St. Louis will be considered "east." Any point that you could reach by traveling halfway around the world going west from St. Louis will be considered "west." I realize that that puts places like Tokyo, Japan and Beijing, China in the west, but for the purposes of this question, let it be that way.

I hope that, after this explanation, no one will be obliged to reprise Bob Hope's musical lament, "East is east, and west is west, and the wrong one I have chose."

 

[texaswildcat]

21.Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, Millard Filmore
so 5

22.General Nathan Bedford Forrest

23.A raised platform connected to the interior side of a parapet that allowed a field work's artillery armament to fire over the top of the parapet

24.a red string on their lapels and thus were nicknamed the Red Strings" and the 'Red-String Band."

25. C.S.S Alabama captured a Union Merchant in the south China Sea, a battle occured between the C.S.S Alabama and the U.S.S Kearsarge which the Alabama lost INCORRECT

 

[cindyscoops]

Game #29; Week 5

21. Five

22. Nathan Bedford Forrest

23. Barbette - Usually found only in permanent or semi-permanent fortifications, a barbette was a raised wooden bed or platform that allowed an artillery piece to be fired over protective wall or parapet without exposing its gun crew to the enemy.

24. Red string on their lapels

25. That "clarification" post changes things The CSS Alabama, with Semmes, captured and burned the Emma Jane off the coast of Malabar, southwest India, on Jan. 14, 1864. That makes it within the specifications of the 90 degrees East, and technically further east than the historical engagement between the CSS Alabama vs.USS Kearsarge off Cherbourg, France on 19 June 1864. Alabama vs. Kearsarge is more of an "engagement," however, if we were to mince words. But then we'd have to put equal value on "further east than any other."

http://www.multied.com/Navy/cwnavalhistory/January1864.html
http://www.lib.ua.edu/libraries/hoole/digital/cssala/cap19.htm
http://docsouth.unc.edu/kell/kell.html

(((I'm very interested to see everyone's answers, and sorry I can't pull the USS Wyoming in the Shimonoseki Straits, Japan, 16 July 1863, out of my hat.)))

 

[sarladaise]

21. 5: van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan
22. Nathan B. Forrest
23. Mound of earth or platform in a fortification on which guns are mounted to fire over parapets.
24. They wore a red string on their lapels
25. Battle of Roanoke Island, NC INCORRECT

 

[bill_torrens]

21. Five

22. Nathan B. Forrest

23. a mound of earth or platform in a fortification on which guns are mounted

24. a red thread

25. The Alabama and the Kearsarge, off Cherbourg, France

 

[dawna]

21. 5

22. General Nathan Bedford Forest

23. A barbette was a raised wooden bed or platfrom that allowed an artillery piece to be fired over protective wall or parapet without exposing its gun crew to the enemy.

24. Red strings in their lapels.

25. Gettysburg INCORRECT

 

[ewc]

21- 5 living US presidents- Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, Pierce, & Buchanan;

22- The steed King Philip was a favorite warhorse of CS Genl NB Forrest;

23- Barbette- From Boatner, 'A platform from which a gun can fire over a parapet without an embrasure. A 'barbette gun' is mounted to fire in this manner. An example are the guns mounted on the top tier of Ft Sumter;

24- Partisans of the Order of the Heroes of America wore red string in their lapels; they were known as the 'Red String Band' or simply 'Redstringers;'

25- Easternmost engagement- occured 19 June, '64, naval battle off the coast of Cherbourg, France between USS Kearsarge and the Confederate armed sloop and commerce raider CSS Alabama. The Alabama was sunk.

 

[sockknitter]

21. 5 (Van Buren, Tyler, Buchanan, Pierce and Fillmore)

22. Nathan Bedford Forrest

23.The artillery in a fortification fired over the parapet wall, not through embrasures INCORRECT

24. red strings on their lapels

25. CSS Alabama vs USS Kearsarge, near Cherbourg, France

 

[hoosier]

Here are the answers to the Week 5 questions:

21. There were 5 living ex-presidents as of the date of Lincoln's inauguration in 1861 (Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan). No other American president took office with so many predecessors still living until Bill Clinton in 1993.

22. Nathan Bedford Forrest rode a horse named King Philip.

23. A barbette was a raised wooden bed or platform that allowed an artillery piece to be fired over a protective wall or parapet without exposing its gun crew to the enemy. (but it was not the artillery piece itself)

24. The Order of the Heroes of America wore a red string (not a ribbon) in their lapels to identify themselves.

25. I knew I was going to get in trouble for this one.

The answer I was going for was the naval engagement between the USS Kearsarge and the CSS Alabama off the coast of Cherbourg, France.

After the first response, I realized that some people might think of the Pacific Ocean as being the Far East, so I tried to put in a clarification so nobody would respond with something that took place in the Pacific.

What I didn't figure on was that somebody would come up with an action that took place in the Indian Ocean.

Although Cindyscoops has documented that the Alabama sank a ship in the Indian Ocean and that, according to my clarification, that was still in "the east" and it was further east than the Kearsarge-Alabama encounter, I will give credit for either answer. Unfortunately for Texaswildcat, the action in the China Sea was clearly in the hemisphere I had defined as "the west," so I can't give credit for your answer.

Here are the scores after Week 5.

Aggie80 30
Bill_torrens 30
Cindyscoops 30
ewc 30
Sarladaise 22
Dawna 21
Traveller 19
Texaswildcat 16
dbardes87 12
Raggedrebel 12
Darrin365 6
Sockknitter 5

Happy Easter!