they did a flashback with carolyn groves playing vicki and kept saying it was 1796.
That was because at that point in the story the year had changed from 1795 to 1796. In Ep #366 (the first 1795 episode), Nathan reads from Barnabas and Josette's wedding invitation that the date of their upcoming wedding is to be December 20, 1795 - and later in the original storyline, but in an episode (Ep #420) prior to the events dealt with in the flashback in question, Nathan picks a wedding date of March 2nd and Millicent complains it's only a month away, making it February (and, actually, Ep #420 was originally aired on February 2nd). Though it certainlty doesn't help that the opening monologues continue to refer to the year as 1795 even after the year had changed to 1796. :-