page_title: Blockade Strategy Board
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Blockade Strategy Board / Background
caption_attribution_description: Scott's great snake. Cartoon map illustrating Gen. Winfield Scott's plan to crush the Confederacy, economically. It is sometimes called the "Anaconda plan." The tail of the snake is wrapped around the flagpole at Washington D.C., with U.S. flag and liberty cap. New York has winged cap of "FREE TRADE" and a colorful soldier from one of its Zouave regiments; ships are entering the port of New York (unlike the blockaded southern ports). New Jersey has "Trenton 76 + 61" written. Delaware has "Union Peaches" written. Maryland has "We give in MD" written. Virginia has beehive with Stars and Bars flag (representing Richmond) and burning railroad bridge. West Virginia (separated from Virginia by dotted line) has man flying U.S. flag and waving sword. North Carolina has sketch of a man eating from a barrel labeled "Rosin" with the caption "POOR EATING". South Carolina has "CONTRABANDS" (runaway slaves) fleeing for Tennessee. Georgia has dilapidated "COTTON FACTORY" building falling apart. Alabama is complaining "DAM OLD VIRGINIA TOOK OUR CAPITOL" (the Confederate capital was moved from Montgomery to Richmond). Mississippi has sketch of "BURNING MASSA OUT". Louisiana shows idle men lying on barrels saying "Can't ship now" and a lynched "UNION MAN" hanging from gallows. Texas has sketch of "COSTLY SHOOTING $1000.00 A HEAD" (a Confederate man firing at fleeing slaves). Indian Territory shows Indian smoking pipe in front of teepees, cradleboard hanging from tree in background. The head of the snake is in Missouri, driving "Jackson &amp; Co." into Arkansas. "Kanzas"[sic] shows "Union Music" (sketch of advancing troops under U.S. flag). Iowa similarly shows "HAWK-EYE MARKSMEN" advancing. Illinois, Indiana and Ohio show corn, pork and wheat being speeded eastward by railroad. A cannon in southern Illinois (next to flagpole with U.S. flag) is pointed southwestward. Kentucky shows soldier with coonskin hat sitting on fence in name of "ARMED NUTRALITY"[sic]. Eastern Tennessee (separated by a dotted line from the rest of the state) shows "KNOCKSVILLE WHIG" in pugilistic attitude, next to flagpole flying U.S. flag. There are several engraving errors (due to fact that the plate had to be engraved in mirror-image form): the dollar sign and the "S" of "South Carolina" are backwards.
context_page_description: The Blockade Strategy Board, also known as the Commission of Conference, or the Du Pont Board, was a strategy group created by the United States Navy Department at outset of the American Civil War to lay out a preliminary strategy for enforcing President Abraham Lincoln's April 19, 1861 Proclamation of Blockade Against Southern Ports. Enforcing this blockade would require the monitoring of 3,500 miles of Atlantic and Gulf coastline held by the Confederate States of America, including 12 major ports, notably New Orleans and Mobile. The group, consisting of: Samuel Francis Du Pont, who acted as chairman; Charles Henry Davis; John Gross Barnard; and Alexander Dallas Bache, met in June to determine how best to cut off maritime transport to and from these seaports. Their reports for the Atlantic seaboard were used, with modifications, to direct the early course of the naval war. Their analysis of the Gulf Coast was not so successful, largely because the detailed oceanographic knowledge that marked the Atlantic reports was not available for the Gulf.
context_section_description: Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor was bombarded and seized by the Confederate States Army on April 12–14, 1861, thereby initiating the Civil War. Following the outbreak of hostilities, on April 19, President Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of all ports in the states that had seceded from the Union at that time: South Carolina; Georgia; Florida; Alabama; Mississippi; Louisiana; and Texas. Later, when the coastal states of Virginia and North Carolina also succeeded, the proclamation was modified to include their ports as well.
  The blockade, which existed only on paper at this time, became an integral part of the plan to persuade the seceded states to return to the Union that was proposed by General in Chief Winfield Scott. Although Scott's so-called Anaconda Plan was never formally adopted as a strategy to guide the conduct of the war, the U.S. Navy enforced the blockade to the best of its ability for the duration of the conflict.
  At the beginning of the war, the Union Navy's ability to carry out its Blockade of Confederate maritime ports was woefully inadequate. It had only 90 ships of all types, and only 42 that were powered by steam. A frenzied program of shipbuilding and conversions of existing merchant vessels increased the number to 671 by the end of the war, but as they came into service, their assignments had to be prioritized.
  The person in Lincoln's cabinet most concerned with rationalizing the blockade was Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase. Treasury's Revenue Cutter Service was the agency most familiar with the nation's ports, and the knowledge of harbor bottoms held by its Coast Survey would be needed by the naval commanders who patrolled their waters. He persuaded Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles to set up a commission to study the entire Southern coast, and on June 25, 1861 Welles issued the necessary orders to Captain (later Rear Admiral) Samuel Francis Du Pont. At the same time, he ordered Commander (later Rear Admiral) Charles Henry Davis to the board to serve as secretary, and requested that Army Major (later Major General) John G. Barnard, chief of the Army Corps of Engineers, and Alexander D. Bache, Superintendent of the Coast Survey, lend their services. Other persons gave advice, but all reports issued by the commission were signed only by these four.
caption: An 1861 characterized map of General Winfield Scott's plan for a Union blockade of Southern ports, known as the Anaconda Plan.
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