Coastal War, wins the war

[TommH]

Actually the strategic bombing in WWII was an outgrowth of the thinking of Billy Mitchell among others and was based on the idea that you could defeat a opponent primarily through airpower alone. But thats enough of a digression.

I guess if I was to lay it out, I'd say that
a) the blocade (including supporting landings) was a useful tactic for the North although not a war winning one. In other words you could have one the war without a blocade and with an invasion while the opposite was not true. This is true in the game as well.

b) that the coastal invasions not done for purposes of supporting the blocade were a mixed bag with some being much more successful then others. Overall, when taking into account the capture of New Orleans it was a win for the North and a good use of resources.

c) That the North used its massive Naval and riverine advantage well.

[Mangudai]

I don't think Scott was right, at least not at the time he was proposing his plan. For the federal goverment to just atttempt to passivly starve the population of the South into submission would have been politically untenable. It also had little chance of working.

Today everybody basically agrees the Anaconda plan was necessary but not sufficient.

At the time Scott proposed the plan the war had barely started, nobody had any idea how bad the war would be, and many people were still trying to decide which side was morally right. Scott's plan was a firm escalation of the war, which didn't make the North look evil.

Imagine if in early 1861 Scott had proposed destroying all the confederate armed forces in the field, occupying every major city, and pillaging hundreds of square miles of territory.