Anaconda Plan

• 1. Winfield Scott's Strategic Vision

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  On the 3rd of May 1861, Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott wrote a letter to Major General George B. McClellan outlining a new approach to the war. The document proposed that all ports in the seceding states be rigorously blockaded while a strong column of perhaps 80,000 men advanced down the Mississippi River. This strategy aimed to cut the Confederacy in two by capturing Confederate positions along the river in sequence. A small amphibious force would lead the way, followed by a traditional army to secure victories. The culminating battle was intended to be for the forts below New Orleans. When those fell, the river would be under US control from its source to its mouth. President Abraham Lincoln had already proclaimed a blockade on the 19th of April 1861, just one week after the bombardment of Fort Sumter. Scott believed this plan would bring the insurgent states to terms with less bloodshed than any other method. He argued against marching directly on Richmond because western Virginia remained pro-Union and an invasion there would alienate many citizens. His vision sought to envelop the entire South at once rather than subjugating it piecemeal. By the end of the year, Scott retired due to age and infirmity before he could impose his strategic vision on the government.

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• 2. The Mississippi River Campaign

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  Captain David Glasgow Farragut ran his fleet past the forts defending New Orleans on the night of the 24th of April 1862. He forced the city to surrender despite damage sustained while forcing their way past the forts. After repairing ships, Farragut sent them up the river where they successively obtained the surrender of Baton Rouge and Natchez. The string of easy conquests ended at Vicksburg, Mississippi, however, as Confederate positions occupied bluffs high enough to render them impregnable to naval gunnery of the day. The Army under Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck failed to send even a small body of troops to aid the ships. Farragut was soon forced by falling water levels to withdraw his deep-draft vessels to the vicinity of New Orleans. The Army did not attempt to take Vicksburg until November when Ulysses S. Grant became commander in the West. By that time, the Confederate Army had fortified both Vicksburg and Port Hudson to the south. This stretch included the confluence of the Red River with the Mississippi and became the last contact between the eastern Confederacy and the Trans-Mississippi region. The campaign for Vicksburg eventually settled into a siege which terminated on the 4th of July 1863. Pemberton surrendered all forces under his command numbering approximately 29,500 men. When word reached the garrison at Port Hudson, Maj. Gen. Franklin Gardner knew further resistance was pointless. On the 9th of July 1863, he surrendered the post and its garrison to the Federal Army of the Gulf.

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• 3. Atlantic Coast Blockade Operations

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  Union forces captured a pair of minor forts on the Outer Banks of North Carolina near Cape Hatteras on the 28th of August 29, 1861. A major fleet operation at Port Royal, South Carolina, resulted in the capture of a deep-water harbor midway between Savannah and Charleston on November 7. The Hatteras expedition was originally planned as a raid but transformed into an incursion leading early in the next year to a full invasion known as the Burnside Expedition. This operation included the capture of Roanoke Island and established the Union Army permanently in eastern North Carolina. Port Royal in Union hands was soon used as a base to make the blockade of Savannah almost complete. Charleston remained difficult to seal off requiring some of the bitterest and most persistent ground action of the war. When Fernandina was seized in early March 1862, the war was almost a year old. Following Confederate defeats at Forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee and Roanoke Island in North Carolina, the War Department in Richmond decided to concentrate armies in vital interior areas. Only three ports were defended on the Atlantic seaboard: Wilmington, Charleston, and Savannah. Only the first two were consequential since a mere eight steam-powered blockade runners entered Georgia or northern Florida ports throughout the entire war. The blockade of Charleston merged into the campaign against the city waged by both the Army and Navy not completed until the last days of the war. After mid-July 1863 when Charleston was largely sealed off, most trade between the Confederacy and northern Europe was conducted through Wilmington.

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• 4. Gulf Of Mexico Naval Strategy

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  Ship Island lies in the Gulf between Mobile and New Orleans and was abandoned by its Rebel defenders on the 16th of September 1861. Federal troops arrived the next day to take possession transforming it from a coaling station into a staging area for attacks on Mississippi River forts. Early in 1862, the Gulf Blockading Squadron reconfigured into two separate entities: the East Gulf Blockading Squadron commanded by Flag-Officer James L. Lardner and the West Gulf Blockading Squadron led by Flag-Officer David G. Farragut. After New Orleans fell to the Union fleet under Farragut on the 29th of April 1862, Mobile became the only serious problem for the blockade. In August 1864, Farragut got permission from the Navy Department and troops from the War Department to seize the forts at the entrance to Mobile Bay. Following his famous run past the forts, they fell and were occupied by Federal soldiers. Mobile itself remained in Confederate control but was no longer useful as a port. Galveston was captured by Federal forces on the 4th of October 1862, but retaken by Rebels on New Year's Day of the following year. It remained accessible to blockade runners for the rest of the war yet rendered worthless when loss of Vicksburg completed Federal control of the Mississippi River. U.S. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles wrote a letter in July 1862 instructing commanders to start recruiting freed blacks to keep up with labor demands.

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• 5. Confederate Countermeasures And Evasion

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  Extensive efforts to break the blockade included use of torpedoes mines and armored ships to sink or otherwise render inoperative Federal vessels. Imaginative methods achieved the same result through development and deployment of submarines and torpedo boats. Blockade runners were small and built for speed rather than capacity allowing more than three-quarters of all attempts to evade the blockade to succeed throughout the war. Historians estimated that 2,500, 2,800 attempts were made to run the blockade with at least an 80% success rate. The Confederates received thousands of tons of gunpowder half a million rifles and several hundred cannons from British blockade runners operating from Liverpool and Glasgow. These runners prolonged the war by two years killing 400,000 additional soldiers and civilians on both sides. Southern exports of cotton fell by 95% from pre-war levels devaluing its currency and wrecking its economy. The blockade disrupted coastal trade overloading marginal Southern railroads preventing importation of salt necessary for preserving food and tanning leather. Unable to sell goods particularly cotton on the world market the Confederate government was already strained financially as early as 1862. As its economy steadily degenerated it suffered from general loss of confidence on part of citizens.

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• 6. Historical Debate Over Effectiveness

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  Rowena Reed contends that the central government in Washington was unable to impose its will on field commanders so the war became series of independent campaigns conducted according to whims of whatever general happened to be in charge. She argues Anaconda is later conceptual imposition on events for which order did not exist at time they took place. Most historians regard the war as modification of basic strategy rather than bloodless affair General Scott promised. Virtually all present-day historians agree Union Western campaign was at least as significant as that in East. To extent fighting in West before mid-1863 can be regarded as preparing or culminating in capture of Vicksburg Anaconda has been validated. Worth of Union blockade remains controversial since no one seriously contends it alone would have won war for North. Those who deny importance of blockade advance two principal arguments: first it never very effective; second Southern armies were not hamstrung for lack material owing to blockade. Supply problems faced most often caused poor condition of Confederate railroads though much deterioration caused by overloading due to blockade disrupting normal coastal sea traffic and control inland waterways by Union Navy. Collapse of Army of Northern Virginia followed soon after loss of Wilmington to Union suggesting timing not merely coincidental.

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