What was the ANACONDA plan?

What was the Anaconda Plan?

• Answer:

  The Anaconda Plan or Scott's Great Snake is the name widely applied to an outline strategy for subduing the seceding states in the American Civil War. Proposed by General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, the plan emphasized the blockade of the Southern ports, and called for an advance down the Mississippi River to cut the South in two. Because the blockade would be rather passive, it was widely derided by the vociferous faction who wanted a more vigorous prosecution of the war, and who likened it to the coils of an anaconda suffocating its victim. The snake image caught on, giving the proposal its popular name. In the early days of the Civil War, General-in-Chief Winfield Scott's proposed strategy for the war against the South had two prominent features: first, all ports in the seceding states were to be rigorously blockaded; second, a strong column of perhaps 80,000 men should use the Mississippi River as a highway to thrust completely through the Confederacy. A spearhead consisting of a relatively small amphibious force, army troops transported by boats and supported by gunboats, should advance rapidly, capturing the Confederate positions down the river in sequence. They would be followed by a more traditional army, marching behind them to secure the victories. The culminating battle would be for the forts below New Orleans; when they fell, the river would be in Federal hands from its source to its mouth, and the rebellion would be cut in two.[1] The complete strategy could not be implemented immediately, as no warships of the type imagined for the Mississippi campaign existed. For example, the U.S. Navy was too small to enforce the blockade in the first months of the war. It would take time to gather and train the forces needed to carry out the central thrust, time that the critics of the plan were unwilling to concede. Hence, Scott's plan was subjected to a great deal of ridicule. His opponents called for an immediate overland campaign, directed primarily at the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Their stated belief was that if a few strongholds were taken, the Confederacy would collapse. The conflict was not the brief affair that Scott's critics imagined. In the four years of war, the Federal Navy enforced a blockade that certainly weakened the South, although its effect on the war effort is still debated. Furthermore, the Confederacy was split in two by a campaign based on the Mississippi River, and a consensus has now been established that this Southern defeat was at least as important in the final collapse of the Rebellion as the land battles in the East that had so long attracted both public and historians' attention. The form of the Northern victory thus turned out to look very much like what Scott had proposed in the early days. Consequently, the Anaconda has been somewhat rehabilitated, and general histories of the Civil War often credit it with guiding President Abraham Lincoln's strategy throughout. The Anaconda had a historical development, both in its origin and the way it played out in the experience of battle. The blockade had already been proclaimed by President Lincoln. On April 19, 1861, a week after the bombardment of Fort Sumter that marked the outbreak of the war, he announced that the ports of all the seceded states, from South Carolina through Texas, would be blockaded; later, when Virginia and North Carolina also seceded, their coastlines were added.[2]This executive order was not rescinded until the end of the war, so the blockade existed independently of Scott's plan. In the early days of the secession movement, the status of the border states Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware, all of which allowed slavery, was unclear.[3] All except Delaware had strong pro-Southern interests. Missouri was torn by internal conflict that mimicked in miniature the larger war that was convulsing the nation; Maryland was kept in the Union by jailing many of the opposition faction; and Kentucky tried to keep the peace by proclaiming its neutrality, whereby it would aid neither the North nor the South if they would agree to leave the state alone. Because Congress was not in session to authorize Presidential initiatives to suppress the rebellion, the burden of raising troops for the war fell on the loyal state governments. Ohio was particularly active in doing so, and early acquired the services of George B. McClellan, who was to serve as the commander of its militia, with rank Major General of Volunteers. In a few weeks, as the state militias were incorporated into the national service, the militias of Indiana and Illinois were added to his command. From this power base, he felt enabled on April 27, 1861 to write a letter to General Scott outlining his strategy.[4] He proposed an immediate march on Richmond, by this time the capital of the Confederacy, directed up the Kanawha River; alternatively, if Kentucky were to leave the Union, a march directly across that state should take Nashville, after which he would "act on circumstances." Scott's endorsement of McClellan's letter, which he submitted to the President, shows that he considered it, but not favorably. First, the Kanawha was not suited for water transport, so the march on Richmond would have to be overland, and thus subject to breakdowns of men, horses, and equipment. More serious was that western Virginia (West Virginia had not yet parted from Virginia) was still very much pro-Union; according to Scott's estimate, its populace stood five out of seven opposed to secession. An invasion as proposed would alienate many of these people, and would subject both enemies and friends to the ravages of war. The same argument could be applied to Kentucky. Perhaps most damaging, the war as proposed would subjugate the Confederacy piecemeal, with by necessity the border states bearing most of the burden, "instead of enveloping them all (nearly) at once by a cordon of ports on the Mississippi to its mouth from its junction with the Ohio, and by blockading ships on the sea board."[5] The germ of Scott's Anaconda Plan for suppressing the insurrection is seen in the endorsement. In a few days, he had given it more thought, and he submitted his own proposal in a letter to McClellan on May 3, 1861. A second letter, dated May 21, was his final outline of the plan. General Scott was not able to impose his strategic vision on the government. Aged and infirm, he had to retire before the year was out. He was replaced as General-in-Chief by none other than George B. McClellan.