Download Civil War battle strategies

CIVIL WAR BATTLE STRATEGIES
North vs South
UNION STRATEGY 1: BLOCKADES
 Definition – to obstruct
 A blockade would prevent the South from selling its cotton abroad and importing
war equipment and supplies from foreign nations
 Union initially had 26 ships running up and down the Southern coast
 Later they added ironclads (armored ships)
 Blockade runners (private ships that would slip past the blockades to bring in
supplies) were very successful – the runners made thousands of dollars
 As the war progressed the runners had a more difficult time
 Why was it essential for the South to have blockade runners?
UNION STRATEGY 2: ANACONDA PLAN
 This strategy involved
capturing the Mississippi
River and splitting the
confederacy in half leaving
Texas, Arkansas, and
Louisiana stranded
 Got its name for the fact if it
was successful it would
squeeze the confederacy to
death just the giant
anaconda snake squeezes
its prey to death
UNION STRATEGY 3: TWOFOLD
 Destroy confederate armies on the battlefield
 Lay waste to the land so that southern civilians would stop supporting the war
 This ultimately becomes Sherman’s March to the Sea
CONFEDERATE STRATEGY 1: LAND
 Wear down the invading Union armies
 Felt rising casualties would weaken northerners’ support for the war
CONFEDERATE STRATEGY 2: SEA
 Make sure the blockade did not work
 Used swift raiders (fast, lightly armed ships) to capture Union merchant ships and
draw the Union Navy away from their blockade duties
 Used ironclads and even a submarine to sink the Union’s wooden ships and to
open southern ports for trade with other nations
CONFEDERATE STRATEGY 3: POLITICAL
 Known as King Cotton Diplomacy
 Southern leaders believed that the British and French textile mills needed the
South’s cotton to keep running
 They believed if they stopped selling cotton abroad for a time, France and Great
Britain would be forced to help the South break the blockades to get the cotton
they needed
 The North put pressure on France and Great Britain and those two nations
switched to cotton grown in Egypt