What were the war aims and military strategies of the north and south during the civil war?

Answer 1

The strategy of the North was outlined by General Winfield Scott at the very beginning of the hostilities. His scheme, which was eventually used after several Union reversals, is known to history as the Anaconda plan. Economic strangulation of the states in rebellion by Naval blockade and the denial of river transportation by combined naval and land forces, tied with Land campaigns along all major railroads of the Confederacy by the Union Army. The plan found it's masters in Grant and Sherman of the US Army and Faragaut and Porter of the US Navy.

Answer 2

The aim of the South was to maintain its independence and gain official recognition from Washington and from other nations.

The aim of the North was to defeat the rebellion and restore the integrity of the USA.

Southern strategy was simply to resist invasion. They would have been happy without a war. When the combat started, a big priority was to gain allies in Europe, but Lincoln skilfully headed this off. As the Southern heartlands became more impoverished, the Southern armies needed to invade the North in search of food and supplies. After Gettysburg, there was no more chance of this, and the South had effectively lost the war in strictly battlefield terms. All they could hope was that Lincoln would lose the 1864 election. When he won, they could do no more than fight on till they were barefoot and starving, just to show they weren't the sort of people to give up.

Northern strategy started with a successful blockade of Southern ports to deprive the South of war supplies. Momentum was then lost while General-in-Chief Henry Halleck tried to occupy territory, rather than destroy armies, though he did succeed in liberating the Mississippi. Eventually he was replaced by Grant, who waged a war of attrition, ending the system of prisoner exchange, knowing that the Confederates would run out of manpower before he did. At terrible cost, this carried the North to victory.

Answer 3

The North's main goal was to halt the Southern succession, or to bring them back to into the Federal system. The secondary goal was to outlaw slavery. President Lincoln pursued an active strategy of invading the South in order to defeat the Southern armies and depose and/or capture their president, Jefferson Davis, and his straw government ministers,

The South wanted to establish an independent country; this would enable them to use the slaves needed to grow their sole export crop (and earner of hard currency) of cotton. Their strategy was to resist the Northern armies, and hope the British would come to their aid when cotton shipments to Britain were halted by the war. While the British needed southern cotton and were sympathetic to the South, they were reluctant to again fight the United States, and would not recognize the legitimacy of Davis's government.