The Anaconda Plan of 1861 Early Civil War Strategy

The Anaconda Plan was the initial Civil War strategy devised by General Winfield Scott of the U.S. Army to put down the rebellion by the Confederacy in 1861. Scott came up with the plan in early 1861, intending it as a way to end the rebellion predominantly through economic measures. The goal was to remove the Confederacys ability to wage war by depriving it of foreign trade and the ability to import or manufacture necessary materials including weapons and military supplies. The basic plan was to  blockade the saltwater ports of the South and to stop all commerce on the Mississippi River so no cotton could be exported and no war material (such as rifles or ammunition from Europe) could be imported. The assumption was that the slave states, feeling considerable  economic punishment if they continued the rebellion, would return to the Union before any major battles would be fought. The strategy  was nicknamed the Anaconda Plan in the newspapers because it would strangle the Confederacy the way the anaconda snake constricts its victim. Lincolns Skepticism President Abraham Lincoln had doubts about the plan, and rather than wait for slow strangulation of the Confederacy to occur, he chose to do battle with the Confederacy in ground campaigns. Lincoln was also spurred on supporters in the North who aggressively urged fast action against the states in rebellion. Horace Greeley, the influential editor of the New York Tribune, was advocating a policy summed up as On to Richmond. The idea that federal troops could quickly move on the Confederate capital and end the war was taken seriously, and led to the first real battle of the war, at Bull Run. When Bull Run turned into a disaster, the  slow strangulation of the South became more appealing. Though Lincoln did not totally abandon the idea of land campaigns, elements of the Anaconda Plan, such as the naval blockade, did become part of Union strategy. One aspect of Scotts original plan was for federal troops to secure the Mississippi River. The strategic goal was to isolate Confederate states to the west of the river​ and make the transportation of cotton impossible. That goal was accomplished fairly early in the war, and the Union Armys control of the Mississippi dictated other strategic decisions in the West. A drawback of Scotts plan was that the naval blockade, which was declared essentially at the outset of the war, in April 1861, was very difficult to enforce. There were countless inlets through which blockade runners and Confederate privateers could evade detection and capture by the U.S. Navy. Ultimate, Though Partial, Success However, over time, the blockade of the Confederacy was successful. The South, during the war, was consistently starved for supplies. And that circumstance dictated many decisions that would be made on the battlefield. For instance, one reason for Robert E. Lees two invasions of the North, which ended at Antietam in September 1862 and Gettysburg in July 1863, was to gather food and supplies. In actual practice, Winfield Scotts Anaconda Plan did not bring an early end to the war as he had hoped. But it did seriously weaken the ability of the states in rebellion to fight. And in combination with Lincolns plan to pursue a land war, it led to the defeat of the slave states  rebellion.