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Capt Dizle
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The Anaconda Plan
"Winfield Scott's original plan fighting the rebellion"
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.
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Capt Dizle
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Stonewall Jackson had the ability to inspire men to inhuman performance in battle, an almost flawless understanding of the effect of agression on the battlefield, a clear grasp of the technical fundamentals of warfare, and exhibited both tactical brillance and in the contest of the valley campaign, strategic ability. He was clearly the most outstanding military leader in the war and probably the greatest in American history.
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Capt Dizle
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Nice catch. I missed that one. I disagree with either spelling though.
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Dr Strangelove
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quote:
Originally posted by jimmytrick
The Anaconda Plan
"Winfield Scott's original plan fighting the rebellion"
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. |
Yet by 1863 the Union had occupied almost all of the Confederacy's ports and had seized the entire Mississippi river valley. In preparation for Sherman's drive to the sea Union forces had taken Chatanooga. These facts lead me to believe that the Union had not abandoned Scott's plan, but instead had improved upon it and then methodically applied it.
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Capt Dizle
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Lincoln wanted the war prosecuted vigorously. So, while the basic elements of constricting southern trade were pursued there was none of Scott's proposed waiting for the South to shrivel.
No one on either side anticipated how broad and brutal the struggle would become.
Scott's proposed plan was supposed to be not only a fundamentally sound strategy but was concieved as a way to end the war with minimal bloodshed. It turned out that it was the only way to subdue the south and the Federals more or less followed the plan because they were unable to end the war by simply defeating Rebel troops on the field of battle.
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Capt Dizle
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This article probably explains best why the South lost the war:
Cotton Diplomacy In The Civil War
Almost unanimously, Southerners believed they could use cotton to lure England and France into recognizing the Confederacy. Since the administration of Jefferson Davis wanted to avoid any appearance of international "blackmail," the Confederate Congress never formally approved an embargo, but state governments and private citizens voluntarily withheld the crop from the market in hopes of causing a "cotton famine" overseas. Theoretically, widespread shortages would shut down European mills, forcing governments to recognize and perhaps come to the military aid of the Confederacy, or to declare the Union blockade ineffective and disregard or break it in order to reopen Southern ports.
The "King Cotton" mentality was seriously flawed, not the least in overestimating the value of "white gold." First, a bumper crop in 1860 had glutted the marketplace, lowering prices and allowing mill owners to stockpile. Cotton prices did rise sharply late in 1861, but workers, not owners, suffered from the effects of unemployment. Producers, drawing from their reserves, did not feel the pinch until late in 1862, and within a year imports from India, Egypt, and Brazil sufficiently replaced Southern cotton. Second, Davis, never an astute diplomat, failed to recognize how much Europe feared the possibility of war with the U.S. Private European citizens and industrialists invested in speculative ventures tenuously backed by Southern cotton securities, but their governments would not antagonize the North by recognizing the Confederacy for the sake of guaranteeing those investments or increasing supplies of the staple. Further, Southern society tied cotton inseparably to slavery, and England, the example Napoleon Ill would follow, led the abolitionist movement in the world community.
Europe's wait-and-see attitude hardened into unassailable neutrality after the Southern armies suffered reverses beginning at Gettysburg, and Davis and his supporters realized the cotton strategy had failed as a diplomatic tool. They had unwisely hoarded their one great asset and undermined their best chance of financing the war.
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Capt Dizle
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The inability of the South to manufacture a navy capable of keeping its ports open was the key thing. If the South could have traded it could have overcome the shortage of manufacturing.
If that were not true then there wouldn't have been a blockade in the first place.
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Chris 62
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But I'm feeling MUCH better now
Jan 2001
time: 00:21
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Actually, your not showing me anything.
I can describe lee's`campaigns, and break them down for you, and you just say generalities that he's "great".
How do you define greatness?
Was he victorious more often then not?
No, as the second half of the war counts, and he also missed two excellent chances to destroy the army of the Potomic (the first was the seven days campaign, the second was after Antietam/Sharpsburg, either of which would have given the Confederacy the politcal clout it needed in Europe.)
He was excellent on the battlefield, calm and collected, and had a firm grasp of tactics, but you assert "Greatness", ala a Napoleon or wellington, and he just doesn't rate that.
If you look, I did rate him highest of all civil war generals, but an all time great general?
I don't see it, and you have shown me nothing along those lines jimmy.
There is nothing "pointless" about talking about Lee's career, except a little misdirection by you when professionals (like in Dino's article) point out he is an American sacred cow, and was not the great his legend was made out to be.
In other words, put up or shut up. 
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Capt Dizle
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If you know Lee's campaigns well enough to break them down and do not consider him a great general then I see no point in trying to change your mind.
We can debate forever and I would be glad to discuss it but you seem to be more interested in winning an argument than stimulating conversation.
Greatness is in the eye of the beholder. Napoleon took 450,000 men into Russia and only 20,000 came back home. I could easily find fault with his greatness in that. You can then list all of his great qualities and so forth. More than willing to discuss it but no argument for me.
Now, I find it interesting that you seem to believe that it was possible that France and England might have recognized the South if Lee had won at Sharpsburg. Do you believe that war could have actually broken out between these nations and the North?
The question in my mind is what might have happened if Lee had won at Gettysburg.
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19-08-2002 09:33
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