Similarly, the crippling cost of the war had to be met from somewhere, and the South’s main means of raising money were through the export of cash crops such as tobacco and cotton. The South needed to import raw materials in order to prosecute the war, especially after the loss of the stockpiles at Nashville. The presence of the blockade was also intended to be instrumental in stopping the Confederacy from trading with the outside world, in either direction. USS Kanawha cutting out a blockade runner The depot passed into Federal control, where it remained for the rest of the war, providing the Union with another crushing advantage. Two forts, Fort Donelson and Fort Henry, were constructed to defend the area – but Grant captured Fort Donelson in February 1862, after which Southern commander General Albert Sidney Johnston, realizing that his position was impossible, drew back from Nashville. Tennessee was therefore an important center for the distribution and marshaling of resources, and Nashville quickly became a major holding point for supply and arms stockpiles. There was also a major ironworks at Clarksville, on the border of the state with Kentucky. The city of Nashville was served by no fewer than five railroads, while as well as the Tennessee River itself, the state also played host to the Cumberland River. Grant, did indeed achieve this aim and from that point onward, the Confederacy was fighting a losing battle in many respects.Īnother important aspect of the plan was to capture the valley of the Tennessee River. The Vicksburg campaign, won by Major General Ulysses S. If the Union succeeded in its intention to capture it, then it would allow men and arms to be transported with much greater ease to the South. This was eventually to prove highly significant in the outcome of the war, and Confederate President Jefferson Davis referred to Vicksburg as being his nation’s “vital point.” Even though the population was more thinly spread here than around the cities of the Eastern Theater, the river was nevertheless of enormous strategic importance.
The Objectivesįirst, the South would be divided by the United States gaining control of the Mississippi – and thereby cutting it off from the West. It was put into action in 1862, and consisted of several parts. Nevertheless, the plan was accepted after some hesitation by the Union command. The idea of simply constricting the South to the point of surrender, rather than forcing it by force of arms proved deeply unpopular in the press, and McClellan’s earlier remark was picked up by several newspapers, as the “Anaconda Plan” name became widely used. Scott was, however, mistaken: diplomacy was not what the South wanted. At this point, thought Scott, those in the South who agreed with the Union (of whom he believed there were many more than had stated their positions publicly) would force their governors to agree to surrender. Together with the blockade, he felt that this would be sufficient to isolate the South. He suggested that a force of 60,000 men, accompanied by gunboats, should pass along the Mississippi to make it secure for Union in a line from the Illinois city of Cairo to the Gulf of Mexico. Scott took his ideas to Lincoln, and explained in more detail exactly what he proposed should be done. In a foreshadowing of its later name, McClellan likened Scott’s plan to a boa constrictor.
McClellan that he felt a properly enforced blockade of Confederate-held ports, together with an advance along the Mississippi, would allow the establishment of Federal positions and leave the Confederacy disorganized, isolated, and with no alternative but to agree to terms. In the first week of May, Scott informed Major General George B. The briefings he gave resulted in refinement of the military objectives to which the Union would aspire. As early as the beginning of April 1861, he had regular meetings with President Abraham Lincoln, in which he offered his thoughts on the current situation. Scott was the first man to draw up a military strategy to put down the uprising in the Southern states. It received the name because of its relative passivity: the image conjured up was one of an anaconda slowly squeezing the life from its victim. The plan was suggested by Winfield Scott, General-in-Chief of the U.S. 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 Anaconda Plan was the popular name given to a strategy employed by the Union during the American Civil War.
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