Anaconda Plan Summary
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, which created the Secession Crisis. As more southern states joined South Carolina, Scott proposed a blockade of southern ports along the coast and the Mississippi river to force the “insurgent States” to agree to “terms with less bloodshed than by any other plan.” When the details of Scott’s plan were leaked to the press, newspaper editors were critical. They felt it was a slow, drawn-out solution, and nicknamed it the “Anaconda Plan.” Although Lincoln ordered a blockade of southern ports after the Battle of Fort Sumter, he also approved an assault on Richmond, the Confederate capital. Scott helped plan the campaign, but it failed when the Confederates won the First Battle of Bull Run. Scott eventually resigned and was succeeded by George B. McClellan. However, the Union Blockade continued through the war and contributed to the Union victory.
Anaconda Plan Overview and History
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 American history.
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, & blockade them.” Two months later, after the Battle of Fort Sumter and the outbreak of the Civil War, Scott elaborated on his blockade recommendation in a letter to Major General George B. McClellan, major general of Ohio volunteers. On May 3, 1861, Scott wrote:
We rely greatly on the sure operation of a complete blockade of the Atlantic and Gulf ports soon to commence. In connection with such blockade we propose a powerful movement down the Mississippi to the ocean, with a cordon of posts at proper points, and the capture of Forts Jackson and Saint Philip; the object being to clear out and keep open this great line of communication in connection with the strict blockade of the seaboard, so as to envelop the insurgent States and bring them to terms with less bloodshed than by any other plan.
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 consequences.”
Anaconda Plan
Scott could not have been more correct, but he may have been unaware initially that McClellan was among those who championed bludgeoning the South into submission using the seemingly invincible military and industrial might of the northern states. As the young general lobbied to crush the rebellion by leading a campaign against the Confederate capital at Richmond, he disdainfully likened the aging general’s more passive approach to the strangulation tactics used by boa constrictors. Seizing upon McClellan’s derisive comparison, Northern newspaper editors began sarcastically to refer to Scott’s proposal as the Anaconda Plan.
McClellan Replaces Scott
Eventually, the war hawks prevailed. After several months of discord, Scott offered Lincoln his resignation on November 1, 1861. On the same day, the War Department issued General Orders No. 94, announcing the president’s executive order reporting Scott’s retirement. Lincoln announced that “Major-General George B. McClellan . . . [would] assume the command of the Army of the United States.”
After his ascension, McClellan adopted a more measured approach to extinguishing the rebellion. Much to the consternation of the President, McClellan spent four months organizing the largest land force to date on the North American continent and planning for a campaign up the Virginia Peninsula, as opposed to a direct overland assault on Richmond. McClellan finally launched his Peninsula Campaign on March 17, 1862. By late May, the Army of the Potomac was only six miles from the Confederate capital. Inexplicably, McClellan then lost his nerve and began a slow retreat in the face of stern resistance from General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. The Union lost the opportunity to end the rebellion quickly.
Anaconda Plan Outcome
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.
Anaconda Plan Significance
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 carnage.