The Anaconda Plan

The Confederates tried to gain British and France, the Union campaigned to seize Richmond, and the Union’s Anaconda Strategy. This plan had three parts. First the Union Army had to defend Washington, D.C., and continually pressure the Confederate capital at Richmond. The Federal Navy would block southern ports and cut off Confederacy access to foreign goods. Finally, divide the confederacy by invading the South.

The Anaconda Plan was a concept created by Abraham Lincoln and Winfield Scott. Step one was to surround the South by sea to cut off its trade. Step two was to divide the Confederacy into 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

During the Civil War, several strategies were applied by the warring groups. The Anaconda Plan was one of them; it was a strategic plan that was used by the union with the aim of defeating the Confederacy at the onset of the American Civil War. The plan's primary goal was to defeat the rebellion by employing methods such as blocking the southern ports as well as controlling river Mississippi. By so doing, the South would be cut off and isolated from the rest of the world (Schroeder, 2017). General Winfield Scott substantially developed the Anaconda Plan after the Confederate attack which took place at Fort Sumter. The plan played a substantial role as it helped in ending the Civil War with fewer casualties from the warring groups. In fact,

At the onset of the war in 1861, plans were already being developed by both sides on how to defeat the other in the shortest amount of time. The Union was faced with trying to defeat a secession without destroying the Confederate States with the ultimate goal of returning the states to the Union. One suggestion was made by the standing General-in Chief of the U.S. Army, Winfield Scott, to President Lincoln and later deemed the “Anaconda Plan”. The plan would not be put in action until 1862 and would contribute to the degrading of the Confederacy’s ability to wage war and ultimate surrender to the Union.

The Union blockade did not take full effect for many months, allowing the Southerners time to export their cotton harvest, and reap the financial benefits. Alexander Stephens had a plan at the start of the war that he estimated would net around $800M for the Confederacy, providing a sound financial base for the war effort. Although somewhat optimistic, and affected by practical difficulties, it is fair to say that the cotton crop would have been far better exported than stockpiled or burnt. Secondly, the Confederate government displayed an unwillingness to tax her citizens, preferring instead to print money, and suffer the rampant inflation that resulted. The Union financed its war effort mainly from taxation and bonds, while 60% of Southern funds came from unbacked paper money. The problems associated with this are clear to see: prices rose 100-fold over the four years of war, wiping out southerners' savings, and devastating the economy. The government's reaction to this, the third mistake, was to impress public goods for military use. However, rather than curbing inflation, this merely acted as a disincentive to supply, making essential items increasingly scarce. This, coupled with the poor infrastructure and parochialism of some State governors, meant that the army went hungry in a nation with the capacity to produce plenty of food. Finally, it is argued that the Confederate government should have done more to improve infrastructure and

At the beginning of the war the Union thought it would be an easy, quick war. The Union leaders at this time had no actual plan for the war. General Scott saw this and came up with the Anaconda plan. Scott considered the war a strategy game, and would attack and penetrate the enemy 's forces without destroying all of their troops; focusing mainly on victory. At the beginning of the war Scott, unlike others, thought that the war would be over in more than two years. The war ended in four years. The term Anaconda plan came from Northern press trying to explain Scotts plan. Many people thought that Scotts plan was too passive and difficult. The Union’s effort in the civil war increased greatly on April 19, 1861. At this point Abraham Lincoln created a naval blockade, a system of ships that stops all imports and exports, on the Confederate coastline. This blockade stretched from the Rio Grande to the Chesapeake Bay. At this time Lincoln’s argument was that the Confederacy had no right to secede. Creating this blockade allowed the National warships to attack privateers. Privateers are privately owned and run warships. These ships were used to take the Union’s trade ships. Getting rid of the privateers meant that the Union could transport goods easier. Scott 's anaconda plan needed the Union’s army and navy to surround the Confederacy. After encompassing the Confederacy the army and navy would tighten in, and effectively strangle the South. This contained two

The Economic advantages. First, advantages for the South. The textile scene was a big part of the North’s economy. So when the South didn’t sell cotton to the North anymore, that hurt the North’s economy. The South’s economy was based on the slave trade, livestock, and agriculture. As long as the Confederacy was still standing, the South would continue to make money off slaves as there were other countries that still allowed slavery and other Southern States. Now for the North. The North’s economy was hurt by no more cotton being sold to them by the South, but it did not affect them too much. They could just buy cotton from others places like India and Egypt and the North’s economy would do fine without textiles. The North’s industry was much greater than the South’s.

During this time, both regions wanted to enlarge their lands, though they had different motivations. The South wanted to expand fast and take slaves with them for the growth of cotton since it was profitable. In other words, they wanted to protect the survival of cotton crops and to go on with the system of slaves in new territories. The North, however, wanted to

From 1861-1865 the Civil War was fought to determine the survival of the independent Confederacy. In January 1861, seven Southern slave states seceded from the United States of America to create the Confederate States of America ("Civil War Academy American Civil War"). The twenty three states that remained loyal were called the Union. War was declared on April 12, 1861 between the North and South due to the controversial issue of slavery and its extension in Western territories. Following the first attack on April 12, 1861 at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, Union General Winfield Scott proposed the Anaconda plan to defeat the South. Instead of attacking the South with a vast number of troops and killing everyone in sight, this three-part plan aimed to fight the rebellion in a more humane way, with least amount of casualties possible. The strategy of the plan was to use the Navy to blockade Southern ports to prevent imports/exports, control the Mississippi River, splitting the confederacy in two, and to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, VA. Although the Anaconda plan was not directly successful, it led to similar approaches by Union Generals McClellan, Sherman, and Grant.

ship the cotton but this meant that the South had to pay the North to

Another hindering resource for the Confederacy was their financial situation. Their unstable finances turned out to set them back more than their lack of industrial capacity. Their economy relied on cotton exports, however a Union blockade made this revenue stream almost nonexistent. To make up for this loss in revenue, the government tried to raise taxes, “but southerners resisted taxation”(Goldfield, The American Journey, 408). The government then sold bonds, but as the Confederacy lost money, bond sales drastically decreased. With few options left, the Confederate government started printing money to finance the rest of the war. This

On March 5, 1861, William Henry Seward was appointed Secretary of State by Abraham Lincoln. Seward convinced President Lincoln to establish a blockade around the major Southern seaports. The blockade was put into effect shortly after the attack on Fort Sumter. On April 19, 1861, Lincoln issued a proclamation for a Union blockade to surround South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Later on April 27, Lincoln extended the blockade to include the states of North Carolina and Virginia. The blockade’s purpose was to stop the flow of trade goods, weapons, and supplies between the southern states and other nations. This war tactic placed an enormous amount of pressure on the Confederate states. Since the Union blockade “prevented the importation of supplies in proportion to the demand” there was an increase of “prices placed upon goods of domestic manufacture”. Southern states were denied revenue since the blockade was stopping the exportation of cotton to European countries. The prices of goods in the Confederacy was already high in order to finance the war and to accommodate the influx of refugees pouring into Richmond. The increase in prices went hand in hand with the growing scarcity of food supplies. Since the beginning of the Civil War, Richmond was heavily taxed. Many of the citizens of Richmond tried to help assist the refugees, but the decrease of business resulted in a decrease in income. For example, coffee was considered as a

Economically the Union was very strong and greatly outweighed the South. President Lincoln, as the war had begun, quickly declared a blockade, as described earlier, against the main Confederate ports. This was supposed to be under an international treaty, that hadn’t been signed yet, which had created the controversial political issues for Lincoln. Fortunate enough for the Union, when war broke out the United States Navy was small like it’s army, and its ships were scattered around the oceans. Of the American ships that were in surrounding waters, ten were partially destroyed or destroyed to prevent them from going to the Confederates when Virginia seceded. If they did this would have taken the Norfolk naval base with it.

While the United States worked hard to set up a working government, a heavily debated topic was states’ rights. “When high protective tariffs were passed by Congress in 1828 and 1832, South Carolina, led by John Calhoun, threatened to nullify them, making them null and void within that state” (What Caused the Civil War). Nullifying the law means that the state would ignore it. The Southern states were angered by the tariffs because they benefited the North and made it more difficult for the South. Hinston Helper states, “It is a fact well known to every intelligent Southerner that we are compelled to go to the North for almost every article of utility and adornment, from matches, shoepegs and paintings up to cotton-mills, steamships and …; that almost everything produced at the North meets with ready sale, while at the same time, there is no demand, even among our own citizens, for the productions of

The North’s actions of abolishing slavery and enacting tariffs caused the South to fight in hopes of preserving their way of life and economy. Plantations in the South were only successful because of slavery. Without the slaves helping them create the abundance of cotton, the South would have no economy. The country’s economy would be greatly altered if slavery was eliminated both from a consumer and producer perspective. When the North did announce that they wanted to completely eradicate slavery, the South was taken aback due to the fact that the whole country would not function without slavery and the cotton produced. The North wanted the South to industrialize but the South replied “… we must ever continue to be, wholly dependent upon agriculture and commerce (South Caroline Protest Against the Tariff of 1828).” The climate in the South did not allow for the same industrialization to occur as it did in the North. Plantations and their productions of cash crops were booming in the South and the northern frontier was too small of a market, therefore leading them to sell to foreign countries. This caused the North to enact tariffs and in order to prevent the South from being too successful and lose them as a market. The North ended up petrifying the Southerners into fighting a war in order to preserve their way of life and thriving economy.