SHORT ANSWER STUDY GUIDE QUESTIONS – My Brother Sam is Dead
Chapters 1,2
1. Who barges into the Meeker tavern in April 1775, and with what news?
2. How does Sam feel about fighting the Lobsterbacks?
3. How does Sam answer when the minister, Mr. Beach, asks him if he thinks he knows better
than the King and Parliament?
4. How has Sam’s father handled him in the past for speaking out?
5. What complaint does Sam have when Tim asks him to help with the chores?
6. Where does Sam tell Timmy he is going and why did he come home?
7. After father orders Sam out of the house, what does father do?
8. What is father’s opinion of Sam’s cause?
9. After church, where does Tim find Sam hiding?
10. Why does Tim become alarmed?
Chapters 3-5
1. Were there many changes in Redding due to the war in the summer of 1775?
2. Who passed secret information on Sam’s whereabouts to Tim?
3. What disturbed Tim’s fall afternoon wood chopping?
4. How does Tim respond when the Continental officer threatens his father?
5. Why didn’t Sam rush into the tavern to help his father?
6. What happened when Sam and his father met face to face?
7. How did the war now affect Redding in the winter of 1776?
8. What are Tim’s feeling about Sam since he has seen him?
9. What is Mr. Heron’s offer to Mr. Meeker concerning Tim?
10. How does Tim react to Mr. Heron’s offer?
Chapters 6-8
1. What action does Timmy take that is against his father’s wishes?
2. How does Betsy Read interfere with Tim and Mr. Heron’s plan?
3. What argument do Life and Susannah have over Sam’s letters?
4. Who does Life decide to take with him to Verplanck’s Point for his yearly trip?
5. What is Tim’s job on the journey to Verplanck’s Point?
6. For what reason is their trip interrupted? What happens?
7. Who aids Tim and his father in their time of need?
8. How are Tim’s cousins living conditions different from he and Sam’s at the tavern?
9. What do Ezekiel and Tim discuss before falling asleep?
10. Describe father and Tim’s experience in Verplanck’s Point?
11. Why does father decide to return the same way they came and not to stop at the tavern?
12. What slows them down when they are four miles from their relatives?
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Short Answer Study Guide Questions – My Brother Sam is Dead page 2
Chapters 9,10
1. What happens to father on the road between Ridgebury and Redding Ridge?
2. How does Tim decide what he will do if the cow-boys return for him and the supplies?
3. What does Tim do when the cow-boys stop him?
4. How does he feel about his ploy?
5. Where does mother think Life is?
6. In what way does Tim realize he has changed after he gets back home?
7. How is business at the tavern now that just Tim and his mother are running it?
8. What draws the townspeople’s’ attention late in April of 1777?
9. How do the Lobsterbacks react when the Rebel messenger rides into town unknowingly?
10. On his way to fetch Dr. Hobart to tend to the wounded messenger, what does Tim witness?
Chapters 11,12
1. What news does the wounded Continental messenger have about the British troop movement?
2. Whose troops are following the Redcoats?
3. Why does that interest Tim?
4. When Captain Betts comes into the tavern after his release from the British, what does he tell
Timmy to do?
5. Why won’t mother allow him to do it?
6. Where does Tim find Sam and in what shape is he?
7. What is mother’s plea to Sam when she sees him? What is Sam’s reply?
8. How does Timmy feel after this meeting with Sam?
9. What news of Life and Jerry Sanford did they receive in June of 1777?
10. Who shows up later in 1778 and what advice does he give Timmy?
11. Do Tim and mother take his advice?
12. What turn of events occur at the end of chapter 12?
Chapters 13, 14, Epilogue
1. Who does Tim go to see about the false charges against Sam?
2. How does Tim’s mother react to this message?
3. What does she find out about the situation?
4. How does Colonel Read clarify the problem for mother and Tim?
5. What was the result of the court martial?
6. How does Colonel Parsons explain the decision to Tim?
7. When Tim goes to Colonel Putnam in Sam’s defense, what happens?
8. What is Tim’s plan to save Sam the night before the execution? Is it successful?
9. Was Sam executed as planned?
10. What happens to Tim and his mother after Sam’s execution?