Question of the Week: 5/8-5/14/23

Time traveler question… Would you stay in Vicksburg or head somewhere else in May 1863?



8 Responses to Question of the Week: 5/8-5/14/23

  1. After the Battle of Champion Hill, on May 16th, Grant’s overall strategy was clear. It was time for Confederate troops to abandon Vicksburg, and live to fight another day, with better odds for victory.

  2. I would probably leave and stay with relatives in Port Hudson. Opps! Just kidding.

  3. I would clear out of Vicksburg for some place safe, life Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.

  4. Wow. Never thought about it, but if I could time travel to Vicksburg in 1863, I could meet up with my own Great Grandfather, Andrew Tow! He was a Norwegian immigrant who became an abolitionist, became a Union soldier, saw war up close at Vicksburg, causing him to become a Quaker pacifist for the rest of his life. We know so little about what he experienced, but it must have been pretty horrible. His daughter (my grandma) told me how no one in the family was ever allowed to say they were “starving”, since what could they possibly know about such things?
    He went on to be a successful farmer in Norway, Iowa, and made sure his daughters had the same chance to go to college as his sons. Must have been a fascinating guy and a community leader. Sure wish I could have met him.
    Both my father and I are named after him. When I saw his grave I was startled to see the he was born, and died, on April 3—which is my own birthday!

  5. Douglas’s comment was very moving, and immediate, in the sense of containing such connectivity.
    I’d have probably stayed, and seen what all the fireworks were about.

  6. My, my, my. I’d stay at Willard’s and keep drinking coffee with a variety of officers and politicos–maybe that cute John Hay will mosey over to say “hello.”

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