Question of the Week: 5/20-5/26/19

If you could have dinner (or a beer) with a Civil War politician and they would answer all questions honestly, who would you want to hang out with?



16 Responses to Question of the Week: 5/20-5/26/19

  1. If it was possible to have a conversation with John B. Floyd (former Governor of Virginia and Buchanan’s Secretary of War from March 1857 – 29 DEC 1860) it would be interesting to have answers to the following questions:
    – Did you really misappropriate over $800000 in Indian bonds?
    – When did you commence discussing/planning for Southern secession?
    – What was the REAL reason you appointed PGT Beauregard as Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point (late in 1860)?
    – What war materials did you manage to move South prior to your resignation as President Buchanan’s Secretary of War?

  2. Hard to pick somebody other than Lincoln, but either Seward or Indiana Gov. Oliver Morton might be interesting.

  3. John C. Breckinridge. The various perspectives he could provide are interesting to say the least.

  4. Wow! What a perfect question–one that might be asked about the 2000s at some point. Maybe Richard Yates, the uber-effective war gov of the Great State of Illinois, or one of my faves Horace Greeley, or maybe Fernando Wood, Thurlow Weed–what a gift of choices!

  5. Two: Alexander Stevens and Frederick Douglas. The exchange between the two would be fascinating. I couldn’t sait to see the look on the CS Vice President when I tell him about the future and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

  6. Dan Sickles. I don’t know how honest he would/could be, but I bet he’d be great company over a beer!

    1. I’m guessing that Dan wasn’t a craft brew guy. And I’d keep tabs on my wallet.

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