Time Machine - What Could You Change?

[MRB1863]

Interesting concept! So nobody would collect the "new" items that would become antique artifacts in today's world?

(Besides telling Reynolds to duck!)

 

[millerpsc]

I'd go back with an ounce of gold and invest it in Campbell's can soup brand and come back to the future RICH me

 

[7th Texas Mounted Rifles]

Interesting concept! So nobody would collect the "new" items that would become antique artifacts in today's world?

(Besides telling Reynolds to duck!)

I'll admit to it!

How big is this time machine?

I'd have been shot for trying to pillage a mountain howitzer off the field, haha!

 

[7th Texas Mounted Rifles]

I try not to buy into the 'what if' questions, but this one is interesting.

Here is a 'what if' to all of those who would have reversed the Lincoln assasination - what kind of repercussions would that have today?

I don't know if 'martyr' is the correct word i'm looking for, per se... But doesn't Lincoln kind of have to have been killed to go in the books as such a legendary example of innovative thinking and reform today? Doesn't it show that he was deemed such a threat in his time with his forward thinking that killing him was a must?

(I really hope that comes across in the manner in which it was intended.)

Among other reasons, Sam Houston took that into account upon the capture of Santa Anna:

"Santa Anna dead, would be just another dead Mexican."

He realized that although the popular consensus was to string Santa Anna up from the nearest tree - by doing so he could potentially provide Mexico with something to rally around, thus prolonging the revolution.

Plus, if he had Santa Anna killed - we may never have been introduced to chicle, haha.

 

[Jackson Hornets]

I would've probably tried to advise on the importance of cleansing wounds and such. I can't think of how much I could've alleviated the suffering or prevented the early deaths of some men either blue or gray.

I would've tried to advert Lincoln's death if it came to where the south lost. I might've tried to convince Davis to replace Bragg with someone else in the west earlier on too.

The "what ifs" are what we amateur historians, professional historians and all-around history nerds obsess over sometimes.

 

[John Winn]

I've fantasized about this sort of thing and it does make for some idle entertainment. However, I don't think I'd have been able to accomplish much except maybe kill John Wilkes Booth (if I could find him). I just don't see any politician, general, or surgeon listening to some crazed lunatic who says he's from the future and knows things they don't know. I certainly wouldn't have had time to gain any sort of office or position and I'd have had a hard time just getting by as my experience is far from what I'd need to deal with the nineteenth century reality.

"Really, that pus isn't laudable. It's a sign of infection by little thingies you can't see but that are ..."
GUARD !

"You can't secede because you didn't petition the people or get a Supreme Court ruling and so ..."
GUARD !

"You can't proceed with your bombardment because you'll just overshoot and so you need to retreat right now and ..."
GUARD !

 

[Bee]

I would switch out the ceramic plate that Armistead broke over Early's head with a lead one....

 

[bankerpapaw]

I would cause a mailstorm I would do my best to ensure Grant destroyed Lee's AoNV in a series of final battles leaving most if not all dead maybe even Lee dead and for good measure even Johnston army AoT destroy it(even if it wanted to surrender)... and try to bring Thaddeus Stevens fame conquered state speech to life.... I would have carved out a Freeman state out of the defeated Southern states...(Call it the Great State of Lincoln)... and rounded up confederate officers and politicians for a long stay in prison camps... The south would have paid in blood, land, and statehood for bringing war to our nation for the filth of slavery...

Gee, you certainly would be out for revenge, wouldn't you?

 

[5fish]

Gee, you certainly would be out for revenge, wouldn't you?

You could call it being revengeful or one could call it justice. I have always thought the North was too magnanimous with the South in victory.

 

[rosefiend]

I'd probably catch up to some of the female soldiers and see what the real stories behind them were.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

I'd go back to 1860, when things were coming to a head, while arms and war supplies were being planned for try to remind both sides they were going to need band aids, too.

 

[tbuckley]

I wouldn't change anything. I would go back to the summer of 1865 and pick up the Confederate buckles and buttons that would have been laying around on the various battlefields.

 

[civilken]

I have always believed that I was kidnapped at birth by a group of Long Island Gypsies. They were good parents And did their best. But I have always believed my true family were the Rockefellers. If I could go back in time I would ask them to take another child and leave me with the rich ones.

 

[Lord of Mirkwood]

I would cause a mailstorm I would do my best to ensure Grant destroyed Lee's AoNV in a series of final battles leaving most if not all dead maybe even Lee dead and for good measure even Johnston army AoT destroy it(even if it wanted to surrender)... and try to bring Thaddeus Stevens fame conquered state speech to life.... I would have carved out a Freeman state out of the defeated Southern states...(Call it the Great State of Lincoln)... and rounded up confederate officers and politicians for a long stay in prison camps... The south would have paid in blood, land, and statehood for bringing war to our nation for the filth of slavery...

I second the motion!

Seriously, though, I probably would have gone back to 1864 and convinced Lincoln to take on Charles Sumner as his running mate instead. Then, when Lincoln is assassinated, Sumner becomes President. There would be none of Andrew Johnson's putting Confederates into political power, no Black Codes, possibly even no Ku Klux Klan.

A Northern reporter who visited the South right after the Confederate surrender observed that Southerners would be willing to submit to anything, even equality for freed slaves. It was Johnson's vacillations and hesitation that gave the ex-Confederates some newfound confidence. Then came the KKK, and after 1877...

With Sumner, instead of Johnson's mass amnesty (5/29/1865), there might have been an executive order barring Confederate politicians and military personnel from holding office. Following that, an order allowing black men to vote. Congress, not set to meet until December but full of Radicals, would probably not object. If these two things were accomplished by the end of June 1865, the erstwhile Rebels would have been completely disarmed. Perhaps Sumner would even support land redistribution. He would certainly uphold freedmen's land ownership in the Sea Islands and under Sherman's Special Field Orders No. 15. My preference would be a three-pronged land redistribution program that confiscated all Confederate plantations and divided them among freedmen, Southern Unionists, and Northern soldiers.

Perhaps the Federal government would have carried out treason trials. I would love to see a Nuremberg Trial for Confederate leaders. I pick Charleston to be the venue, since it was sort of like the Nuremberg of the Confederacy - not the capital, but an important symbolic stronghold (the heart of the slave trade, the cradle of secession, the site of Fort Sumter, etc.). We could charge the Confederates with treason, war crimes, and crimes against humanity (i.e. slavery). Jefferson Davis would be dangling on a rope by the end of 1866. President Sumner, working in tandem with the Radical Republican Congress, would "de-Nazify" the Confederacy.

All of this is just my opinion...

 

[5fish]

He would certainly uphold freedmen's land ownership in the Sea Islands and under Sherman's Special Field Orders No. 15. My preference would be a three-pronged land redistribution program that confiscated all Confederate plantations and divided them among freedmen, Southern Unionists, and Northern soldiers.

I like the idea of giving land to Union troops and Southern unionist. It would be like recolonizing the southern states again.

 

[Michael W.]

Interesting concept! So nobody would collect the "new" items that would become antique artifacts in today's world?

(Besides telling Reynolds to duck!)

Call me selfish, but that's exactly what I would do. Get my hands on all the $20 gold double eagles I could obtain and come back LOADED. Also pick up weapons that would have been "mint" condition then, come back and be worth a small fortune...

 

[kepi]

I would have stopped Booth.

 

[Chattahooch33]

I would cause a mailstorm I would do my best to ensure Grant destroyed Lee's AoNV in a series of final battles leaving most if not all dead maybe even Lee dead and for good measure even Johnston army AoT destroy it(even if it wanted to surrender)... and try to bring Thaddeus Stevens fame conquered state speech to life.... I would have carved out a Freeman state out of the defeated Southern states...(Call it the Great State of Lincoln)... and rounded up confederate officers and politicians for a long stay in prison camps... The south would have paid in blood, land, and statehood for bringing war to our nation for the filth of slavery...

I guess I'd have to go back in time to take you out.

 

[5fish]

I guess I'd have to go back in time to take you out.

Catch me if you can....

 

[Lord of Mirkwood]

I guess I'd have to go back in time to take out the guy who wants to take out the Union man! My goodness. Plot and counterplot.