As a visitor guided through McRaven, the experience is an authentic visual unfolding of the way in which people lived in the Old South from the primitive pioneer beginnings of the Frontier Days, up through the prosperous Empire Period, and on to the golden days of the last 30 years before the Civil War.

Not only has McRaven withstood the test of time, it has survived the ravages of war. A famous local diarist of the Siege of Vicksburg wrote that cannon shells fell like hail where the train tracks crossed the Confederate line. That very same track lies just in front of the structure, and the house was caught directly in the crossfire of the Battle of the Railroad Redoubt.Our guided tour is devoted to sharing not only the history of Vicksburg, and its architecture, but the reality of the 'Way of Life' in the Old South. Come on in and relive the days before and during the Civil War in Vicksburg's most unique and historical home and gardens.