Sixth Grade
Worksheets
The Anaconda Plan
The first shots of the Civil War were fired on April 12, 1861. Within a week, President Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of Southern ports. This was the key to the North's strategy to win the war. The South's livelihood depended on selling its cash crops, mostly cotton and tobacco. If all Southern ports were blocked, it would stop the South's income from its export of crops. It would also keep the South from importing products it needed, including war supplies, medicine, and household goods. The North knew that the South had few factories and couldn't manufacture its own supplies.
General Winfield Scott was the commander of the Union Army. His plan to defeat the Confederacy had three main parts: 1) Blockade all Eastern and Southern ports in the Confederate States. 2) Divide the South by taking control of the Mississippi River. 3) Control the Tennessee Valley and march through Georgia to the coast.
