Have You Ever Thought... ?

[Jamieva]

I agree with @John Hartwell that the problem with this scenario is we are going to transpose 2016 values onto that year. It's impossible to totally disassociate yourself from how we are now and somehow fully sink yourself into what you would've done in 1861. As Bud Robertson often repeated to us over and over in his Civil War class, people look at history through the lens of the present and that's a completely wrong way to look at it.

 

[John Hartwell]

That statement makes this a virtually impossible-to-answer question...

Precisely. We can only guess -- which for a great many people reduces to simple wishful-thinking. It's a common problem with all "what-ifs."

 

[LoriAnn]

Of course it's impossible to do anything but guess, but the fun is in the guessing.

 

[Aussie Billy Sherman]

I'd have been looking for the nearest pub

 

[PeterT]

I'd have been looking for the nearest pub

And after you and I finished our beers in the Melbourne pub, we stowed away on the CSS Shenandoah just before it departed Melbourne ... or perhaps not