|
|
|
Winfield Scott (1786–1866)
|
As the army’s senior commander in 1861, General
Winfield Scott organized the defenses around Washington
at the outbreak of the Civil War. A Virginian whose
services and prestige the South hoped to attach
to its cause, Scott remained loyal to the Union,
personally commanding President Lincoln’s bodyguard
at the inauguration and offering his military counsel
for the defeat of the Southern armies. Specifically,
Scott suggested a plan to blockade the Confederacy’s
eastern seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico and, to
seize control of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.
This Anaconda Plan was designed to sever the South’s
two most western states, Texas and Arkansas, and
to squeeze the Confederacy into submission. At seventy-four,
Scott was largely ignored because of his age and
infirmities, and he requested retirement in the
fall of 1861. Scott, however, would live to see
the war end four years later by strategies similar
to what he had endorsed at the start. |
|
Mathew Brady Studio (active 1844–1883)
Salted-paper print, circa 1861
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
|
|
