Introduction
In the spring of 1861, President Lincoln and General Winfield Scott planned the Union's war strategy against the Confederacy. Step one of the Anaconda plan was to cut off the south's trade. Step two was to divide the confederacy into several sections so that one region could not help another. Step three was to capture Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the confederacy, and destroy the confederate government. Journalists called this strategy the Anaconda plan because it resembles the crushing death grip of an Anaconda snake. Most Northerners believed that the war could be won with a single Union assault on Richmond. In 1861, thousands of volunteers poured into Washington, D.C., shouting "On to Richmond!" A young widow and Washington social leader named Rose O'Neal Greenhow watched these eager troops carefully. Greenhow was a strong supporter of the southern cause. She used her friendship with the government of officials to learn just when and how the Union planned to attack Richmond. Her challenge was to find a way to deliver this information to confederate leaders without being discovered. The Anaconda Plan was not officially adopted by the union but it greatly impacted the war. The Union army was lucky enough to have one of the greatest generals in American history as its commander, General Winfield Scott. Winfield Scott tried to shape Union strategy in 1861 and bring a quick end to the Civil War. His strategy became known as the Anaconda Plan.
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Characterized map of Scott's plan.
General Winfield Scott.
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Trade
Step one of the Anaconda plan was to blockade the south's ports and cut off its trade. in 1861 the union navy launched the blockade. By the end of the year, most ports in the south were closed to foreign ships. The south had long exported its cotton to great Britain and France. The confederacy looked to great Britain to send ships to break through the blockade. The British however, refused this request. As a result, the south could not export cotton to Europe or import needed supplies.
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Dividing
Early in 1862, The Union put step 2 of the Anaconda Plan into action. The strategy was to divide the confederacy by gaining control of the Mississippi river. In April, Union admiral David Farragut led 46 ships up the Mississippi river into new Orleans. This was the largest American fleet ever assembled. In the face of such overwhelming force, the city surrendered without firing a shot.
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Richmond
Later in 1862, The Union put step 3 into action Union general George McClellan sent 100,000 men by ship to capture Richmond, again, a Union victory seemed certain. But despite being outnumbered, Confederate forces stopped the union attack in a series of well fought battles. Once more, Richmond was saved.
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Map of Virginia with Richmond highlighted .
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Origins
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. This executive order was not rescinded until the end of the war, so the blockade existed independently of Scott's plan.
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Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor
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Conclusion
Although a century and a half has elapsed since the end of the Civil War, the importance of the Anaconda Plan remains to some extent a matter of debate. Clearly, the war was not the relatively bloodless affair that General Scott promised in his original proposal. Most historians regard this as merely a modification of the basic strategy in the course of events. At least one serious historian, however, denies that there ever was anything like a coherent strategy for subduing the South. Rowena Reed contends that the central government in Washington was unable to impose its will on the field commanders, so that the war was a series of independent campaigns, each of which was conducted according to the whims of whatever general happened to be in charge. According to her view, the Anaconda is a later, conceptual imposition of order on events for which order did not exist at the time that they took place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/
TCI textbook pg. 426 and 428
videos: https://www.youtube.com/
TCI textbook pg. 426 and 428
videos: https://www.youtube.com/