Key People Thursday Quiz

James Zachariah George

Senator from Mississippi. Senate Years of Service: 1881-1897. Party: Democrat. Prior to the Civil War, he served as a member of the state convention that passed the ordinance of secession, which he voted for and signed. In 1875, he was one of the leading members of the Democratic State committee that faced the task of overthrowing the Ames administration and establishing white supremacy in the State.

James L. Alcorn

Twenty-eighth Governor of Mississippi: March 1870 to November 1871 Mississippi's first elected Republican governor. _______ opposed secession in 1861 but like most other Mississippi Whigs, he served in the Confederate Army and supported the Confederacy. After the war, _______ advocated full civil rights for the former slaves, including the right to vote, the right to hold public office, and the right to testify in court. Governor _______ was a "scalawag," that is, a white southerner who became a Republican after the Civil War. During his administration, the Mississippi Legislature established a state system of public education and founded _______ University, the first land-grant college for blacks in the United States. Governor _______ resigned in November 1871 to accept an appointment to the U. S. Senate. Two years later he again ran for governor but lost to Adelbert Ames.

William L. Sharkey

25th Governor of Mississippi. _______ was a member of the Whig Party and a strong unionist. He was one of the very few Mississippi political leaders who did not support the Confederate States of America, even after it had been formed and the Civil War had begun. Because of his loyalty to the Union, _______ was named provisional governor of Mississippi following the surrender of the Confederate military forces. Because of the Black Codes, and because the Mississippi Legislature refused to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, the United States Congress refused to seat Senator _______ and Mississippi's congressional delegation in December 1865. Governor _______ did not take an active role in the Reconstruction of Mississippi after he left office in December 1865. He continued his law practice in Jackson until his death in Washington, D. C., on March 30, 1873. _______ County is named in his honor.

Hiram Revels

A freedman his entire life, _______ was the first African American to serve in the U.S. Congress. With his moderate political orientation and oratorical skills honed from years as a preacher, _______ filled the vacant MS seat in the United States Senate in 1870. _______ also favored universal amnesty for former Confederates, requiring only their sworn loyalty to the Union.

Edward O. Ord

As a young man, _______ was considered a mathematical genius and was appointed to the United States Military Academy by President Andrew Jackson. His roommate at West Point was future general William T. Sherman. General _______ was present at the McLean house when Lee surrendered, and is often pictured in paintings of this event. After Abraham Lincoln's assassination on April 14, 1865, many in the North, including Ulysses S. Grant, wanted strong retribution on the Southern states. Grant called upon _______ to find out if the assassination conspiracy extended beyond Washington, D.C. _______ investigation determined the Confederate government was not involved with the assassination plot. This helped greatly to quench the call for revenge on the former Confederate states and people. General in charge of Military District 4 under Congressional Reconstruction Conducts massive voter registration efforts in 1868

Blanche K. Bruce

Formerly enslaved, _______ made history as the first African American to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate. In 1874, the Mississippi state legislature elected _______ to be its representative in the U.S. Senate, making him the second African-American to hold the position. He served from 1875-1881, and thus _______ became the first African-American citizen to work a full term in the United States Senate. During his term, he attempted to desegregate the U.S. Army and in 1878 became chairman of the Select Committee to Investigate the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company.

Adelbert Ames

Republican Senator & Governor from Mississippi. Upon the readmission of the State of Mississippi to the Union, _______ was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate, and served from February 23, 1870, until January 10, 1874, when he resigned, having been elected Governor in 1873. Governor of Mississippi from January 4, 1874, until March 29, 1876

President Andrew Johnson

With the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, _______ became the 17th President of the United States (1865-1869), an old-fashioned southern Jacksonian Democrat of pronounced states' rights views. After Lincoln's death, President _______ proceeded to reconstruct the former Confederate States while Congress was not in session in 1865. He pardoned all who would take an oath of allegiance, but required leaders and men of wealth to obtain special Presidential pardons. He was impeached and tried by the Senate in the spring of 1868 and acquitted by one vote.