The “Anaconda” Plan
19 APRIL 1861
THE “ANACONDA” PLAN
At the outbreak of the Civil War the senior-most officer in our federal Army was GEN Winfield Scott, the victor of the Mexican War of the 1840s. As an overall strategy to deal with the Confederacy, his staff dusted off that which had worked so well in that Mexican War, an epic, Napoleonic clash of land armies culminating in the capture of the capital city of Richmond. To support this scenario, the US Navy would attenuate the enemy’s counter-campaign by clamping a tight naval blockade on the Confederacy. Indeed, Mexico and the Confederacy had much in common. Both were large land masses with miles of coastline. Both had navigable rivers penetrating their sparsely populated heartland. Both were agrarian, non-industrialized economies, whose commerce centered in a few key seaports. Neither had a significant Navy, nor the resources to build one.
The Mississippi River was included in Scott’s blockade plan, as its capture would complete the encirclement of the Rebels and split off the Trans-Mississippi region, the breadbasket of southern food production. A seaborne blockade coupled with control of the Mississippi would constrict the South much as would an imaginary python. Scott’s plan was quickly dubbed the “Anaconda” strategy.
Lincoln was dispossessed of a better alternative and accepted the strategy despite the fact that declaring a blockade amounted to de facto recognition of the Confederate republic. On this date, six days after the fall of Fort Sumter, Lincoln announced the closure of southern ports from South Carolina to Texas (Virginia had only seceded 17 April and North Carolina did so on 20 May).
The executive order caught the US Navy unprepared. Leadership had grown gray with many aged officers lingering on the active roster, reluctant to relinquish their paychecks. Bright junior officers stagnated under a clogged promotion system. By 1861 for example, David Dixon Porter had served 20 years as a Lieutenant. Our warship inventory had been allowed to deteriorate in both numbers and technology. Of the 90 ships in commission, 50 were vessels of sail, many too derelict to get underway. Only 38 were steam powered and 20% of these were inoperable. Worse, many of our seaworthy ships were deployed at that moment, showing the flag in far-flung corners of the world. The Union Navy on this day had but 24 ships to affect Scott’s plan! A Blockade Strategy Board was quickly convened to authorize the purchase and outfitting of yachts, ferries, whalers, tugs–even garbage scows. The civilian masters of these vessels were often commissioned directly as acting Naval officers. And within several months, the Union Navy was getting back on her feet, patrolling the Confederate coast.
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CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Cogar, William B. Dictionary of Admirals of the U.S. Navy, Vol 1 1862-1900. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, p. 131.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865. Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, p. I-9, VI-30.
Eisenschiml, Otto and Ralph Newman. Eyewitness: The Civil War as We Lived It. New York, NY: Grosset & Dunlap, 1956, pp. 346-55.
Surdam. David G. Northern Naval Superiority and the Economics of the American Civil War. Columbia, SC: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 2001.
Trotter, William R. Ironclads and Columbiads: The Civil War in North Carolina, The Coast. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair Pub., 1989, pp. 25-29.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: David Dixon Porter’s date of rank as a Lieutenant was 27 February 1841. Three days after Lincoln proclaimed the blockade above LT Porter received his next promotion–to Commander (the rank of Lieutenant Commander was not authorized until May 1864).
Over the course of the Civil War from 1861-65 the size of the Union fleet rose from 90 to 670 vessels, 1300 to 6700 officers, 7500 to 51,500 seamen, while the annual budget rose from $12 million to $123 million.
