Extra Credit Questions

[J. Beckert]

Nicolay?

[RJNorton]

Excellent guess, Joe, but it's not him.

[Gene C]

William Stoddard ?

[RJNorton]

Good job, Gene!! That's him. I thought this one might last awhile. Here's the photo of Stoddard that I am most used to seeing in books:

[RJNorton]

One time Abraham Lincoln's coachman drove him to a certain location. When the president came out, he found that the coachman was too drunk to drive him back to the White House. Another person had to drive Lincoln back to the Executive Mansion.

Where was President Lincoln when he came out and found his coachman passed out with the reins in his hands?

[J. Beckert]

The National Hotel?

[RJNorton]

Nope, Joe, not the National Hotel, but definitely a place whose name is familiar in Washington.

[Lincoln Wonk]

(07-22-2012 04:14 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Today I am starting a new section in the Trivia category. I hope it catches on...we'll see. Teachers often ask their students extra credit questions on tests, in homework, or even over a weekend...."your answer must be in by Monday at 8:00 A.M." type of situation.

In other words the questions here might not involve the detail of what Joe may ask in his Stump the Yankee column or what I have been asking in the Trivial Trivia category.

Anybody can ask a question here.

I will start out with:

Name the city and circumstances where Abraham Lincoln first met Edwin Stanton.

They were trying a patent case as a team in Cincinnati. Stanton, hardly out of earshot of Lincoln, called his future president a long-armed ape.

[L Verge]

Roger - Was it the Willard Hotel or Soldiers' Home?

[J. Beckert]

Grover's Theater was my back up and if I remember correctly, Leonard Grover drove the carriage back to the White House.

[RJNorton]

Joe, you are correct. Leonard Grover himself drove the president back to the White House. The drunk driver, Francis Burke, was the same driver who drove the Lincolns to Ford's on April 14, 1865.

Joe, you win one original glass of lemonade made by Lemonade Lucy.

I had seen this story before but was most recently reminded of it when reading the new book by Jim Garrett and Rich Smyth. The authors write that Burke lies in an unmarked grave not far from the Surratts.

[RJNorton]

During the inaugural train ride, a live grenade was found in the president-elect's car. A carpet bag with the grenade inside had been secretly placed in the car during the stopover at a city. Detectives later stated that the grenade would have destroyed the car and all its occupants.

The grenade was discovered just after the inaugural train had departed the station in this city. What city was it?

[antiquefinder]

(03-22-2013 06:32 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  During the inaugural train ride, a live grenade was found in the president-elect's car. A carpet bag with the grenade inside had been secretly placed in the car during the stopover at a city. Detectives later stated that the grenade would have destroyed the car and all its occupants.

The grenade was discovered just after the inaugural train had departed the station in this city. What city was it?

Baltimore?

[L Verge]

Cincinnati?

[RJNorton]

Gloria, that was a good guess, but Laurie got it. I used Scott Trostel's book as my source for this, and I think Michael J. Kline, author of The Baltimore Plot: The First Conspiracy to Assassinate Abraham Lincoln, corroborated the grenade story by finding a contemporary newspaper account of it. It happened in Cincinnati.