What were the strategies of the Union's Anaconda Plan?

Answer 1

The Anaconda was the joke-name given to the original war-plan by the Union's General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, because it looked like slow strangulation, when most officers and politicians were expecting the war to be all over after a quick, virtually bloodless march on Richmond.

The plan depended on a Naval blockade to starve the South, then a drive down the Mississippi, to divide the Confederacy in two (isolating all enemy troops to the west of the river), and then sending in the armies to defeat the weakened foe.

Congress rejected the plan, and Scott soon retired through old age. But under the test of an increasingly long war, the Union eventually saw the sense of this, and it brought victory.

It remains an interesting case of a highly distinguished soldier, able to provide valuable insights, but too old to be in command, and no longer vigorous enough to fight his plan through sceptical ministers.

Answer 2

The first military strategy offered to President Abraham Lincoln for crushing the rebellion of Southern states was devised by Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott. From April 1 through early May 1861 Scott briefed the president daily, often in person, on the national military situation; the results of these briefings were used by Scott to work out Union military aims.

About 3 May Scott told his protégé, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, that he believed an effective "Blockade" of Southern ports, a strong thrust down the Mississippi Valley with a large force, and the establishment of a line of strong Federal positions there would isolate the disorganized Confederate nation "and bring it to terms." Contemporary sources said McClellan called it Scott's "boa-constrictor" plan. Scott then presented it to the president, in greater detail, proposing that 60,000 troops move down the Mississippi with gunboats until they had secured the river from Cairo, Ill., to the Gulf, which, in concert with an effective blockade, would seal off the South. Then, he believed, Federal troops should stop, waiting for Southern Union sympathizers to turn on their Confederate governors and compel them to surrender. It was his belief that sympathy for secession was not as strong as it appeared and that isolation and pressure would make the "fire-eaters" back down and allow calmer heads to take control.

But the war-fevered nation wanted combat, not armed diplomacy, and the passive features of Scott's plan were ridiculed as a proposal "to squeeze the South to military death." The press, recalling McClellan's alleged "boa-constrictor" remark, named the plan after a different constricting snake, the anaconda. The plan was not adopted, but in 1864 it reappeared in aggressive form. Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's 2-front war, fought in Virginia and Tennessee, pressed the Confederates, while Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's march through Georgia to the sea helped "squeeze the South to military death.

Source: "Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War" Edited by Patricia L. Faust

Answer 3

to take over the mouth and the river of the Mississippi, and Tennessee rivers, to take over Richmond, and blockade the south

Answer 4

a huge snake that belongs to scott.