Winfield Scott

:This article is about the general and presidential candidate. There was also a songwriter named Winfield Scott.

Civil War

As general-in-chief at the beginning of the American Civil War, the elderly Scott knew he was unable to go into battle himself. He offered the command of the Federal army to Colonel Robert E. Lee. However, when Virginia left the Union in April 1861, Lee resigned and command of the field forces defending Washington, D.C., passed to Major General Irvin McDowell.

Related Topics:
American Civil War - Robert E. Lee - Virginia - Union - April - 1861 - Washington, D.C. - Irvin McDowell

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Scott did not believe that a quick victory was possible for Federal forces. He devised a long-term plan to defeat the Confederacy by occupying key terrain such as the Mississippi River and key ports on the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, and then moving on Atlanta. This Anaconda Plan was derided in the press; however, it was the strategy the Union actually used in its broad outlines, particularly in the Western Theater and in the successful naval blockade of Confederate ports. In 1864 it was continued by General Ulysses S. Grant and executed by General William Tecumseh Sherman in his Atlanta Campaign and March to the Sea.

Related Topics:
Confederacy - Mississippi River - Atlanta - Anaconda Plan - 1864 - Ulysses S. Grant - William Tecumseh Sherman - Atlanta Campaign - March to the Sea

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Scott had served as general-in-chief of the U.S. Army for twenty years, but resigned on November 1, 1861, under political pressure from Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan after the Union defeat at Ball's Bluff. McClellan succeeded him as general-in-chief.

Related Topics:
November 1 - 1861 - George B. McClellan - Union - Ball's Bluff

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