On
hearing the news that Fort Sumter in
Charleston harbour had been taken,
Abraham Lincoln
called a special session of Congress and proclaimed a blockade of
Gulf of Mexico ports. This strategy was based on the Anaconda Plan
developed by General Winfield Scott,
the commanding general of the Union Army.
It involved the army occupying the line of the Mississippi and blockading
Confederate ports. Scott believed if this was done successfully the
South would negotiate a peace deal. However, at the start of the war,
the US Navy had only a small number of ships
and was in no position to guard all 3,000 miles of Southern coast.
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