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Anaconda Plan. The Anaconda Plan was a strategy outlined by the Union Army for suppressing the Confederacy at the beginning of the American Civil War. [1] Proposed by Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, the plan emphasized a Union blockade of the Southern ports and called for an advance down the Mississippi River to cut the South in two.
The Anaconda Plan was the popular name given to a strategy employed by the Union during the American Civil War. It consisted of a large-scale blockade of ports in the South, combined with a Federal attack along the Mississippi River, aimed at splitting the Confederacy. The plan was suggested by Winfield Scott, General-in-Chief of the U.S. Army.
Anaconda plan, military strategy proposed by Union General Winfield Scott early in the American Civil War. The plan called for a naval blockade of the Confederate littoral, a thrust down the Mississippi, and the strangulation of the South by Union land and naval forces. This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.
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The Anaconda Plan was a strategy devised by General Winfield Scott in the early days of the Secession Criss that called for a naval blockade of Southern ports, which would prevent the Southern states from conducting trade with foreign nations. After Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860, South Carolina responded by seceding from the Union, ...
Much of General Winfield Scott’s Anaconda Plan is documented in a March 3, 1861, report to incoming Secretary of State William Seward and a letter to Major General George B. McClellan.Two main elements of the Anaconda Plan were a naval blockade of Southern seaports and seizing control of the Mississippi.Major General George B. McClellan compared the plan to the strangulation tactics employed by boa constrictors. Seizing upon McClellan’s derisive comparison, Northern newspaper editors began to sarc...Two of the primary elements of General Winfield Scott’s recommendations to suppress the Southern rebellion — the naval blockade of Southern ports and the subjugation of the Mississippi River – even...Lieutenant General Winfield Scott
On March 7, 1855, Congress passed a joint resolution temporarily reviving the rank of lieutenant general to be “filled by brevet, and brevet only.” The bill also conferred the title upon Winfield Scott, to rank from March 29, 1847, to acknowledge his “eminent services of a Major-General of the Army in the late war with Mexico.” Five years after his appointment, the federal government called upon Scott to develop a strategy for leading the nation’s armed forces into the bloodiest conflict in A...
March 3, 1861 — Scott Proposes to Blockade the South
On December 20, 1860, the South Carolina legislature enacted an ordinance of secession in reaction to Abraham Lincoln’s election to the U.S. presidency six weeks earlier. On March 3, 1861, the day before Lincoln’s inauguration, General Scott proposed four alternatives for dealing with the secession crisis. The second option on Scott’s list was to “Collect the duties on foreign goods outside the ports of which this Government has lost the command, or close such ports by acts of congress, & blo...
Scott’s Plan is Not Well-Received
Unfortunately for Scott (and perhaps the nation), his plan to slowly strangle the Confederacy by blockading her seaports and securing the Mississippi was not well-received by those envisioning a quick end to the conflict. In the same communique, the prescient general warned that “The greatest obstacle in the way of this plan—the great danger now pressing upon us—[is] the impatience of our patriotic and loyal Union friends. They will urge instant and vigorous action, regardless, I fear, of the...
What followed was the protracted war Scott had so earnestly wished to avoid. Tragically, the Civil War may have claimed the lives of over 850,000 Americans.
Ironically, two of the primary elements of Scott’s Anaconda Plan to avoid the bloodbath — the naval blockade of Southern ports and the subjugation of the Mississippi River — eventually became two of the decisive factors that ended the war.
- Harry Searles
Dec 7, 2020 · In 1861, Scott, a native of , Virginia, had been general-in-chief of the U.S. Army for twenty years. A hero of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War (1846–1848), and the Whig Party candidate for president in 1852, he was one of the most famous men in America and, despite age and infirmity, one of its best military minds. Read more about: Anaconda Plan
Why Did the Union Call it the Anaconda Plan. The main purpose of the Anaconda plan was to defeat the rebellion by blockading southern ports and controlling the Mississippi river. This would cut off and isolate the south from the outside world. An Anaconda is a snake that squeezes and suffocates it’s victim. The Anaconda Plan was designed to ...
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Fact #1: The Union “Anaconda Plan” relied heavily on sea supremacy. Winfield Scott, brevet lieutenant-general in command of the entire Federal army, presented Abraham Lincoln with a grand strategy for the war shortly before the Battle of Bull Run. The “ Anaconda Plan ” called for a stiff blockade of Southern seaports in conjunction with ...
