WINFIELD SCOTT was born on the family estate near Petersburg, Virginia, on 13 June 1786; attended William and Mary College briefly and studied law in the office of David Robinson; enlisted in Petersburg’s cavalry troop, 1807, and became a captain in the regular service, May 1808; received a one-year suspension for open criticism of General James Wilkinson, 1810; served in New Orleans on General Wade Hampton’s staff, 1811-1812; was promoted to lieutenant colonel, July 1812, and colonel, March 1813; served on the Niagara front in the War of 1812, was captured and paroled, then participated in actions at Fort George, where he was wounded, and at Uphold’s Creek; was promoted to brigadier general, March 1814; as a brigade commander, was largely instrumental in American successes in the battles of Chippewa and Lundy’s Lane (where he was seriously wounded); for his valor, was brevetted major general, July 1814; supervised the preparation of the Army’s first standard drill regulations and headed a postwar officer retention selection board, 1815; visited Europe to study French military methods, 1815-1816; held regional command in the Division of the North, 1816; married Maria D. Mayo, 1817; was president of the Board of Tactics, 1815, 1821, 1824, and 1826; commanded the Eastern Department, 1825; his resignation at being passed over for Army command refused, 1828; again visited Europe, then resumed command of the Eastern Department, 1829; his field command of the Black Hawk War forces forestalled by cholera among his reinforcing troops, 1832; was an effective presidential emissary to South Carolina during nullification troubles; commanded the field forces in the Second Seminole and Creek Wars, 1836; was cleared by a court of inquiry on his handling of both operations; assumed command of the Eastern Division, 1837; was dispatched to maintain order on the Canadian border, where American patriots were aiding Canadian rebels seeking an end to British rule; supervised removal of the Cherokees to the trans-Mississippi region, 1838; negotiated a peaceful resolution to the boundary dispute between Maine and New Brunswick, 1839; was promoted to major general, June 1841; was commanding general of the United States Army, 5 July 1841-1 November 1861; led American forces in the decisive campaign of the Mexican War from the Vera Cruz landings to the capture of Mexico City, 1847; was the unsuccessful Whig candidate for president, 1852; received the brevet of lieutenant general by special act of Congress, 1855, retroactive to the date of Vera Cruz; settled the Anglo-American dispute over San Juan Island in Puget Sound, 1859; retired from active service, November 1861; died in West Point, New York, on 29 May 1866.
The Artist Giuseppina Vannutelli (1874-1948), portrait and genre painter, was born in Rome, Italy, where she studied art under the tutelage of her accomplished father, Scipione Vannutelli (1834-1894). In 1897 she won an award in a competition of original works launched by the Académie St. Luc, and in 1900 she entered a major work, Mater Purissima, in the Espositzione Alinari. Her portrait of Brevet Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott, which bears her signature and the inscription Roma, is reproduced from the Army Art Collection.
Scott’s “Anaconda Plan”
As Scott, McClellan, President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), and other officials prepared the Union forces for the upcoming war, disagreements arose between them over the best strategy for obtaining victory. Many people in the North-from politicians and military officers to newspaper editors and ordinary citizens-believed that the Union Army would easily defeat the Confederate force. They called for a full-scale invasion of the South, arguing that the Union Army’s advantages in manpower, weapons, supplies, and veteran officers would enable it to smash the Confederate rebellion within a matter of months.
Winfield Scott did not agree with this strategy, however. He believed that a big invasion of the South was a terrible idea for several reasons. For one thing, he thought that the South might be a far tougher opponent than most Northerners realized. He also did not have a lot of confidence in the inexperienced soldiers that the Union was training for the war. Scott worried that it would take months before these men developed into competent troops. Finally, he believed that a successful full-scale invasion might produce “devastated [slave states] not to be brought into harmony with their conquerors, but to be held for generations, by heavy garrisons [large numbers of troops].”
Instead of an invasion plan, Scott developed a strategy to “envelop the insurgent [secessionist] States and bring them to terms with less bloodshed than by any other plan,” as he stated in a May 1861 letter to McClellan. Under Scott’s proposed plan, the North would hold off on a major invasion and instead concentrate its efforts on blockading Southern ports and controlling the Mississippi River, which ran through the western section of the Confederacy.
The general believed that these waterways held the key to Union victory. Northern control of the seas would prevent the Confederacy from receiving weapons and other supplies from other nations. Northern control over the Mississippi River, meanwhile, would drive a wedge between Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas and the rest of the Confederacy. Scott firmly believed that if the North could establish an effective blockade and divide the South by taking control of the Mississippi, the Confederacy would eventually collapse from supply shortages and economic weakness. The Union could then invade and smash the remains of the Confederate Army into pieces.
Scott believed that his plan would eventually work, and that it would cause less bloodshed than other strategies. But many Northerners did not like Scott’s plan. Political leaders, newspaper writers, and ordinary farmers and townspeople all said that his plan was too cautious and that it would take too long to execute. They called Scott’s strategy the Anaconda Plan, after the large snake that kills its victims by slowly squeezing them to death. Impatient and overconfident, these critics continued to call for a massive military invasion of the South. Public demand for a big offensive (attacking) campaign finally became so great that Lincoln agreed to an invasion plan.
McClellan pushes Scott into retirement
During the summer of 1861, the North mounted a major offensive into Virginia. The invasion ended in disaster, though, when Southern troops smashed the Union Army at Manassas Junction on July 21. Many Northerners called on Scott to retire when they learned the results of this battle, called the First Battle of Bull Run or the First Battle of Manassas. Since he was general in chief over all Union troops, they argued that he deserved some of the blame for the defeat, even though he had been at his offices in Washington, D. C., when the actual battle took place.
General McClellan maneuvered to push Scott into retirement as well. McClellan ignored the general, saying that “he understands nothing, appreciates nothing.” Submitting his reports directly to Lincoln, he tried to convince Northern political leaders that Scott should resign. Lincoln tried to calm the bitter rivalry between the two generals, but his efforts failed. On November 1, Scott retired from active military service “for reasons of health.” In reality, though, it was the actions of McClellan and his political allies that forced him to retire.
Scott spent the rest of the war watching from the sidelines. As the war progressed, he noted with great satisfaction that the Union used a great deal of his Anaconda Plan to defeat the Confederacy. The Union Navy established a blockade of Southern ports that eventually became extremely effective, and his proposal to seize control of the Mississippi Valley became a key part of Union strategy by 1862. In the spring of 1865, the Union finally won the war.
Scott lived to see the Union restored, although health problems plagued him throughout the Civil War years. He died in 1866 while staying at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point in New York.
