8/31/2023 0 Comments Anaconda plan simple definition![]() This meant that a slow approach to waging the war would allow time for this latent Union sentiment to reclaim its rightful place. One of the factors underlying Scott’s strategy was his belief (common among Union military and civilian leaders) that the bulk of Southerners were pro-Unionists simply suppressed by a troublesome minority. The 300-plus pound septuagenarian general-in-chief proposed what became derisively known as the “Anaconda Plan.” Scott foresaw a Union column of 80,000 men pushing down the Mississippi River, severing the Confederacy in twain while the Union navy instituted a blockade to suffocate the South. The Union’s most important initial strategic proposal came from Major General Winfield Scott. ![]() Importantly, this was a de facto instead of a purposeful decision. Davis also feared that any Union penetrations into the Confederacy, even if the captured lands were recovered, would completely destroy the slave system in the area, making it irredeemable. Governors worried about Union descents, and the Southern people expected to see physical manifestations of their new government’s military strength. Politically, Confederate president Jefferson Davis had little choice but to do this. The Confederacy initially implemented a cordon strategy or cordon defense, meaning that it tried to defend the entire scope of the Confederacy, and soon had troops scattered from Virginia to Texas. Later, emancipation, or freeing the slaves, became another objective. The North’s initial political objective was clear: Restore the Union. Since strategy flows from policy, it is here where we must begin. The available space does not allow a complete discussion of the strategies of both sides, but we will touch upon some key points. Here, our focus is upon military strategy, with a little help from its indispensable adjunct, operations. In much military literature the words tactics and strategy are used interchangeably and indiscriminately they are starkly different. Tactics govern the execution of battles fought in the course of operations. While no one from the Civil War era would have been familiar with this exact terminology, they often thought this way. Importantly, this includes the activities of military forces before and after combat. Operations (or campaigns) are what military forces mount in an effort to implement military strategy. Ideally, once strategy is determined, it is then executed. Some examples include implementing blockades, attrition, exhaustion, and applying simultaneous pressure at many points. Strategy means the larger use of military force. All of these are elements of grand strategy. To pursue their goals in wartime, states tap their economic, political, and diplomatic resources and capabilities, as well as their military ones. Civil War leaders often spoke of military policy when today we would speak of military strategy or operations, depending upon the context. Unfortunately, the term policy is often used when what is really being discussed is strategy or operations. Understanding the political objective is critical because it determines so much of where and how the war will be fought. ![]() Policy should inform strategy and provide the framework for its pursuit, but not dictate it. The most important of these is policy, meaning the political objective or objectives sought by the governments in arms (these are sometimes described as war aims, or what they are fighting for). Strategy is a piece of the puzzle that is warfare, the most confusing and complex of human endeavors, and cannot be studied apart from its critical accompanying factors. The diagram below shows these key levels of conflict: Most military and civilian leaders of the time looked only at the prospective battle (tactical issues) the education of Civil War officers simply did not prepare them to think strategically. During the Civil War, as in many conflicts pre-dating World War I, a method of differentiating the levels of war-tactical, operational, and strategic-did not exist in the manner in which we understand it today. It is critically important to understand not only how a war’s battles were fought, but also why, and it is in this arena of why that we enter into strategy.
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