Strange Maps investigates the odd corners of cartography, from chicks tattooed with city plans to a roadmap of Jesus' journeys in India to a plot of Middle-Earth on our planet. Naturally, the site has a bunch of cool military maps, too -- like this look at the Civil War "Anaconda Plan."
If US Army (i.e. northern) General-in-Chief Winfield Scott
(1786-1866) had had its way, the number of casualties [in the Civil War] would have been a lot lower. At the beginning of the war, he devised a plan that would have ended the Secession of the southern states with minimal loss of life.This plan involved strangling the Southern economy by a twofold blockade:
an economic blockade of Southern seaports, preventing the export of cash crops such as tobacco and cotton and the import of arms; and taking control of the Mississippi River, thus dividing the main part of the Confederated States of America from its westernmost parts on the right bank of the river.After a popular newspaper cartoon (pictured here),
Scott’s scheme was called the ‘Anaconda Plan’, after the giant snake that throttles its victims. Incidentally, the name is borne by four types of South American snake, which makes the etymology even more paradoxical. For the consensus is that the name originates in faraway
Sri Lanka, but it’s doubted whether it is Sinhalese (‘Thunder Snake’)
or Tamil (‘Elephant Killer’) in origin.Scott’s plan was not well received; the public mood called for a large-scale invasion.
President Lincoln didn’t choose: he implemented the blockade as proposed by Scott, and the large-scale invasion. A total of two million
Union soldiers repeatedly tried to capture Richmond, the CSA capital in
Virginia, contributing to the eventual heavy toll in lives.
(High five: VSL)
