The Anaconda Plan (Scott to McClellan)

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The Anaconda Plan (Scott to McClellan)
Union Correspondence, Orders, And Returns Relating To Operations In Maryland, Eastern North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia (Except Southwestern), And West Virginia, From January 1, 1861, To June 30, 1865.--#3O.R.--SERIES I--VOLUME LI/1 [S# 107]
HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY,
Washington, May 3, 1861.

Maj. Gen. GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN,
Commanding Ohio Volunteers, Cincinnati, Ohio:

SIR: I have read and carefully considered your plan for a campaign, and now send you confidentially my own views, supported by certain facts of which you should be advised.
First. It is the design of the Government to raise 25,000 additional regular troops, and 60,000 volunteers for three years. It will be inexpedient either to rely on the three-months' volunteers for extensive operations or to put in their hands the best class of arms we have in store. The term of service would expire by the commencement of a regular campaign, and the arms not lost be returned mostly in a damaged condition. Hence I must strongly urge upon you to confine yourself strictly to the quota of three-months' men called for by the War Department.
Second. 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. I suppose there will be needed from twelve to twenty steam gun-boats, and a sufficient number of steam transports (say forty) to carry all the personnel (say 60,000 men) and material of the expedition; most of the gunboats to be in advance to open the way, and the remainder to follow and protect the rear of the expedition, &c. This army, in which it is not improbable you may be invited to take an important part, should be composed of our best regulars for the advance and of three-years' volunteers, all well officered, and with four months and a half of instruction in camps prior to (say) November 10. In the progress down the river all the enemy's batteries on its banks we of course would turn and capture, leaving a sufficient number of posts with complete garrisons to keep the river open behind the expedition. Finally, it will be necessary that New Orleans should be strongly occupied and securely held until the present difficulties are composed.
Third. A word now as to the greatest obstacle in the way of this plan--the great danger now pressing upon us--the impatience of our patriotic and loyal Union friends. They will urge instant and vigorous action, regardless, I fear, of consequences--that is, unwilling to wait for the slow instruction of (say) twelve or fifteen camps, for the rise of rivers, and the return of frosts to kill the virus of malignant fevers below Memphis. I fear this; but impress right views, on every proper occasion, upon the brave men who are hastening to the support of their Government. Lose no time, while necessary preparations for the great expedition are in progress, in organizing, drilling, and disciplining your three-months' men, many of whom, it is hoped, will be ultimately found enrolled under the call for three-years' volunteers. Should an urgent and immediate occasion arise meantime for their services, they will be the more effective. I commend these views to your consideration, and shall be happy to hear the result.

With great respect, yours, truly,
WINFIELD SCOTT
 
General Winfield Scott was the old experienced army officer. He knew how to defeat the Confederacy. He knew it would take time as the U.S. was in early 1861 unprepared for a large war, but had the ability to wage such a war in time.
The use of naval and army forces on the Mississippi destroyed any likelihood of Confederate success, as it eventually did. The blockade of ports and the Union movement down the Mississippi succeeded because the Confederacy never had the force to stop such a movement. An old general would know.
 
Not to mention, it's basically a variation on the Mexican War plan and the British strategy in the War of 1812, both of which Scott had personal experience with. Blockade the coast to isolate the enemy, penetrate the rivers to divide them up, occupy strategic cities, and then go in for the kill. Although Scott seems to have shied away a bit from the (necessary) last element, possibly hesitating to do that to people he still saw as his countrymen.
 
It was essentially a British plan as used against Napoleon. The innovative feature was treating the Mississippi and its extensions as an inland sea.
The Confederacy was overwhelmed at sea and cut off from Europe. Frustrated in that theater, the Confederacy relied on its continental armies, consisting of rifle regiments, artillery and cavalry. The fighting capacity of these forces was more than adequate for the purpose, but the transportation system required to maintain the men and horses, at the points of concentration, did not exist. Therefore the Confederacy had to take risks to try and supplement its logistical system and those risks entailed severe costs, just as Napoleon wore out his army in Spain and then destroyed his alliance in Russia.

The Atlantic blockade was implemented. The best naval combat officer was assigned to the West Gulf squadron. Forts St. Phillip and Jackson were passed and New Orleans was reclaimed by federal forces.

A much smaller army force, co-operating with a much smaller gun boat force, went channel hoping on the inland sea. It attacked the weak points in the Confederate cordon and bypassed the strong points.

Although McClellan may have derided this plan and the press ridiculed it, it proceeded step by step until the Confederate economy collapsed.

Although capturing the capital seems like a way to collapse the opposing government and produce victory, it obviously was not a guaranteed route to victory. Napoleon's army marched all the way to Moscow, but did not make it out, because the old Scythian tactic of trading space for time worked.

Although Richmond was a very important place in the Confederacy, it was not the long standing traditional capital. It was not the largest city in the Confederacy. Charleston was the political center of secession, not Richmond. And the Confederacy was a mainly rural, agricultural society, very similar to Russia at the end of the 18th century.

Despite all the writing about Grant was to take on Lee's army and Sherman was to destroy the Confederate Army of Tennessee, that is not what happened. The Anaconda plan cut off the coastal trade, cut off the cotton export economy, eliminated the very efficient southern steamboat system and then Grant and Sherman, with an assist from Generals Rosecrans and Burnside, picked apart the Confederate rail system. The the Confederate Army in the West largely self destructed and the Army of No. Virginia disintegrated. First its horses weakened and starved and then its men lost the physical capacity to fight.
 
Scott's letter had considerable impact on future plans. Halleck did want to continue any down river operations until December of 1862 and January of 1863. He wanted a few days of frost to calm down the swamps, which was intuitively correct, though scientifically erroneous.
This turned into a strong consideration by May and June of 1863, when Grant wanted to avoid a lengthy siege in Mississippi.
 
The problem with Scott's plan is that it recognizes, but does not make explicit, that the Confederate nation has considerable strength and will not be easily defeated by military force. Thus the plan tacitly admits that the war may go on for multiple years, or even many years, until the Confederate economy completely collapses.
Actions in western Virginia and in Kentucky support the conclusion that Lincoln administration thought a long period of division was possible and that the coal resources of those two areas, even if not fully developed, could become important to Confederacy.
Certainly the railroad and coal capitalists informed Lincoln and Seward, that the conversion of railroads to the use of coal was ongoing and successful.
 
In the end, Scott was more realistic. The fall of Richmond caused the collapse of the Confederacy, but it did not make the southerners loyal. 154 years later, and some of them still want to argue about the Confederate principles. All that the US could accomplish was to remove the capacity of the Confederacy to conduct organized land warfare.
 
In Scott's letter is in the inference that it might be a very long conflict and that the Confederacy may have several iterations, just as Napoleon made several comebacks.
 
Based on reading the census reports from the 1860 census, the preliminary report published in 1862, the report on population published in 1864 and the report on manufactures published in 1865, I conclude that the US was planning on disabling the Confederate economy and was going to persist for as long as it took. They were going to be England and Prussia, and the Confederacy got to be Napoleonic France.
 
The first two targets were the railroad facilities of Baltimore and the steamboat yards of St. Louis. Early on Congress gave the War Department power to seize railroads as in, Nice railroad you have there B&O, it would be a shame if anything happened to it.
St. Louis was promised reimbursement for building river gunboats, and Eads went to work to pull in the needed manpower. Then St. Louis got a piece of the action for shipping railroad equipment to Omaha for the TCRR.
 
After that the coal fields of Maryland, the salt works of Kanawa, the gunpowder mill of Delaware, along with the railroad wheel casting plant in Wilmington, were all retained by the US. By the time they had retained those counties in Kentucky attached to the Ohio River, and which counties provided some steamboat building capacity, they knew they had a going enterprise.
 
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