Winfield Scott (1786-1866) was an American military leader famous for his brilliant tactics in battle, for his insistence on the value of a highly trained, disciplined army, and for being the general who proposed what came to be known as the "Anaconda Plan" to win the American Civil War and preserve the Union. Although Scott's plan was initially rejected and mocked, the essential elements of his proposal were implemented between 1861 and 1865, winning the war.

He was referred to as "Old Fuss and Feathers" because of the value he placed on proper discipline and behavior of those in the military. Following the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Army was largely disbanded and the small standing army of the federal government – as well as local militias – were manned by soldiers who had little or no formal military training. Beginning in May 1814, Scott changed that by establishing his 10-week Camp of Instruction, during which soldiers would drill up to ten hours a day. Scott's efforts led directly to the American victory over the British at the Battle of Chippawa on 5 July 1814 during the War of 1812.

He authored General Regulations for the Army (1821) and Infantry Tactics, Or, Rules for the Exercise and Maneuver of the United States Infantry (1835), standard reading for servicemen up through the 1850s. Scott could, in fact, be credited with creating the force that became the United States Army of the 1840s, and his tactics and concepts informed those of many of the most significant commanders on both sides during the American Civil War.

Early Life & Education

Scott was born in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, on 13 June 1786, the fifth child of William Scott and Ann Scott (neé Mason). William Scott was a veteran of the American Revolutionary War, and his father, James Scott, was a veteran of the Battle of Culloden in 1746 in Scotland, coming to North America soon after. The Scotts were, therefore, a military family.

Scott believed there was an objective standard of right and wrong, & one had a moral duty to adhere to the right, the just, the proper.

Winfield Scott grew to the imposing height of six feet and five inches, and as his family was well-off, he was sent to school rather than working as a planter in the fields like his father (who died when Scott was six years old). Scott began studies at the College of William & Mary in 1805, reading the works of John Milton, William Shakespeare, and others, but he was drawn to the campaigns of Julius Caesar and Scipio Africanus. He remained there two years before leaving to study law under the attorney David Robinson, who had been brought to North America by Scott's grandfather as a tutor for his family.

While working for Robinson as a legal clerk, the trial of Aaron Burr for high treason was held at the courthouse in Richmond, and Robinson, as a well-known court reporter, was chosen to record the proceedings; he took Scott and his two other clerks with him. At the trial, Scott met a young reporter covering the event for the New York Gazette, Washington Irving, who would later become one of America's most famous authors.

Burr's trial, at which he was acquitted (although Scott believed he was guilty), solidified in Scott a belief his Christian upbringing and earlier studies had encouraged: that there was an objective standard of right and wrong and one had a moral duty to adhere to the right, the just, the proper. Throughout the rest of his life, Scott was known for his quick temper and intolerance of "wrong behavior" – which would cause him problems more than once.

Enlistment & War of 1812

Scott had been admitted to the bar in 1806 and was a practicing lawyer in Dinwiddie County, but in 1807, enlisted in the Virginia Militia and served as a corporal of cavalry. In 1808, President Thomas Jefferson authorized the expansion of the US Army, and Scott received a commission as captain in the light artillery.

Stationed in New Orleans, Scott was under the command of General James Wilkinson, who, though the star witness against Burr, was also later recognized as his accomplice in the Burr Conspiracy. Wilkinson owned the area where the troops were bivouacked, which was poorly sanitized and led to the illness or death of many of the soldiers, and although Wilkinson had been ordered by William Eustis, Secretary of War, to move his troops, he refused because he was profiting from the present arrangement.

Winfield Scott, 1814 David Edwin and Joseph Wood (Public Domain)

In 1810, Scott was suspended for a year after a court martial, in part, for his vocal opposition to Wilkinson's refusal to place the welfare of the troops above his own self-interest. During his time out of the army, he returned to practicing law, studied military tactics, and read the works of earlier commanders on strategy and warfare.

When the War of 1812 broke out, Scott was promoted to lieutenant colonel and sent north to support General Stephen Van Rensselaer in his invasion of Canada. After Van Rensselaer was wounded, Scott commanded the forces at the Battle of Queenston Heights, but, afterward, was forced to surrender and was taken as a prisoner of war until released about a month later in a prisoner exchange.

In 1813, serving as chief of staff to Major General Henry Dearborn, Scott significantly improved the administration of the armies on the Canadian frontier and helped plan the attack for the Battle of Fort George. Although Dearborn's forces won the day, most of the British garrison was allowed to escape.

In May 1814, Scott – now a brigadier general – established his training camp at Buffalo, New York, drilling his soldiers up to ten hours every day for ten weeks, relying on infantry manuals from the French army, which he translated into English. His efforts were rewarded by his victory over the British at the Battle of Chippawa on 5 July 1814. Chippawa propelled Scott to national fame, won him the Congressional Gold Medal, and he was promoted to the rank of major general.

Battle of Chippawa H. Charles McBarron, Jr. (Public Domain)

Wounded at the Battle of Lundy's Lane on 25 July 1814, Scott sat out the rest of the war. After the war ended in February 1815, Scott served on the board demobilizing and restructuring the army. In March 1817, he married Maria DeHart Mayo and settled in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. The couple would have seven children and were married for 45 years until her death in 1862. Scott never remarried.

Indian Wars & Politics

Between 1817 and 1840, Scott became involved in politics and was also instrumental in concluding the Black Hawk War in 1832. Scott implemented the same intensive training programs and drills during the Indian Wars (the Second Seminole War and the Creek War of 1836) as he had during the War of 1812.

In 1838, Scott oversaw the removal of the Cherokee from the Southeastern United States in what has come to be known as the Trail of Tears. Scholar Amy S. Greenberg writes:

Although the tribe offered no violent resistance, over a quarter of the Cherokee died on the Trail of Tears while under Scott's supervision.
(171)

As with other famous US Army commanders of the era – notably George Armstrong Custer and William Tecumseh Sherman – Scott's treatment of Native Americans has come to be recognized as a dark spot in an otherwise brilliant military career.

Trail of Tears Memorial at New Echota Christopher James Culberson (Public Domain)

During this time, Scott also de-escalated tensions between the United States and Britain over territorial disputes along the Canadian border. As a member of the Whig Party, Scott was nominated as a compromise candidate at the convention of 1839, but the vote went to William Henry Harrison.

In 1841, Scott was promoted to the office of Commanding General of the United States Army and, in 1844, was again considered as the Whig Party candidate for the presidency but, this time, the nomination went to Henry Clay, who was defeated in the general election by James K. Polk, who won, largely, on his platform of western expansion – which would bring the United States into conflict with Mexico.

Mexican-American War

The northern region of Mexico, Texas, had declared its independence in 1836 following the Texas Revolution, becoming the Republic of Texas. After Polk won the election, he pressed Congress on the annexation of Texas, which became a state in 1845 and set off the Mexican-American War in April 1846.

United States forces at the beginning of the war were led by Zachary Taylor, who pursued a course set by Polk and Scott of conquering the northern regions west of Texas still held by Mexico. Although Taylor won many impressive victories, it became clear that the war would only finally be won by taking the capital of Mexico City, and Scott proposed a plan to achieve this: the capture of the port of Veracruz, from which a full-scale invasion of Mexico could be launched.

Map of the US-Mexican War of 1846-1848 Simeon Netchev (CC BY-NC-ND)

Polk placed Scott in direct command of the invasion. Scholar Martin Dugard notes:

As the Mexican War began, Scott had been a general for three decades. No one in the U.S. Army, not even Zachary Taylor, possessed such standing. Scott had all but forgotten what it felt like to hold a lesser rank.
(293)

Scott organized the largest amphibious assault in US history up to that time in taking Veracruz, reducing the city through bombardment. Greenberg writes:

When the Mexican army refused to surrender, Scott ordered his artillery to fire. For forty-eight straight hours, shells descended on the people of Veracruz, smashing homes, churches, and schools indiscriminately. On March 24, foreign consuls stationed in Veracruz appealed to Scott for mercy. They asked that the women and children of the city be allowed to evacuate. Scott refused their request and stated there would be no truce without surrender. The general intensified his bombing the following day and, as Scott expected, the demoralized army came to terms…Mexico estimated that up to 500 civilians and 600 soldiers were killed in the bombardment.
(170-171)

Scott then led the invasion force inland to Mexico City, taking it and winning the war. The later Civil War generals in the Mexican-American War included those who had served under Scott and Taylor, such as:

Union:

• George B. McClellan
• George Meade
• Ulysses S. Grant
• William Tecumseh Sherman
• George H. Thomas

Confederate:

• Robert E. Lee
• Stonewall Jackson
• James Longstreet
• P. G. T. Beauregard
• Braxton Bragg

These men – and others such as Winfield Scott Hancock, Lewis Armistead, John Bell Hood, and Albert S. Johnston – all learned the tactics and skills later used in the American Civil War while serving under Scott or Taylor, or both, between 1846 and 1848. Robert E. Lee was especially influenced by Scott, and Ulysses S. Grant by Taylor, but they each took lessons from both of their unofficial mentors.

The Anaconda Plan for the Civil War

Scott was the Whig Party's presidential candidate in 1852 but lost to Franklin Pierce, largely because of the negative portrayal of Scott by Pierce's campaign, which used events like Scott's 1810 court martial and the brutality of the taking of Veracruz against him. Scott continued as Commanding General and, in 1855, was promoted to brevet lieutenant general, the first army officer to hold that rank since George Washington.

In 1860, as Southern states began to secede following the election of Abraham Lincoln, Scott organized the defenses of Washington, D.C., and, in March 1861, oversaw the security for Lincoln's inauguration.

The American Civil War began on 12 April 1861 when Confederate forces fired on Union-held Fort Sumter. On 15 April, Lincoln issued his call for a volunteer militia of 75,000 men to put down the rebellion, and Scott objected to this, believing that the conflict required a professional fighting force that would need time to train. Lincoln and his administration rejected Scott's concerns. They felt the rebellion could be crushed quickly by a well-armed volunteer army because they were operating on the unfounded belief that the secessionists of the South were a small but vocal minority. Once the US Army marched south, they believed, it would be welcomed by the majority of Southerners and the Union would swiftly be made whole again.

Map of the United States on the Eve of Civil War, 1861 Simeon Netchev (CC BY-NC-ND)

Scott believed otherwise and drew up a carefully constructed, long-range plan for winning the war – which came to be known as the Anaconda Plan. Scholar Alan Taylor comments:

During the spring of 1861, the Union's elderly commanding general, Winfield Scott, proposed a methodical strategy that would slowly build up a trained army while the navy enforced a blockade on southern ports meant to suffocate the Confederate economy. Eventually, part of the army would advance down the Mississippi to reopen that trade corridor for the Midwest. Wits called his scheme the "Anaconda Plan," after a large snake that encircles and slowly crushes its prey.

Scott's plan required a more patient people than the Americans.

Newspapers, citizens, and politicians (including Lincoln) clamored for a quick strike south from Washington, D.C., on Richmond, the new Confederate capital. Yankees wanted to believe that the Confederacy was an unpopular house of cards that would collapse if given a quick, hard push. Then all the Union troops could go home to celebrate.
(172-173)

This belief was given greater credence in June of 1861 – first, after the impromptu clash of the Battle of Fairfax Courthouse on 1 June in Virginia, when a Union scouting party ran into the Fairfax militia. Both sides claimed victory, but the engagement was actually more of a draw.

On 3 June, however, the Union won the Battle of Philippi (Philippi Races) in Virginia (now in West Virginia) – the first organized land engagement of the Civil War – in which, after the Union's opening artillery barrage, Confederate forces fled from the town en masse (giving rise to the name "Philippi Races" for the battle). After Philippi, it was clear to Lincoln and others who supported the "quick win" concept that the secessionists could be defeated without Scott's long-term plan.

They were proven wrong at the Battle of First Bull Run (Battle of First Manassas) on 21 July 1861 when Union forces under General Irvin McDowell launched an offensive against Richmond and were decisively defeated. Although Scott had objected to the offensive, he had finally relented and helped plan it.

Map of the American Civil War, 1861-1865 Simeon Netchev (CC BY-NC-ND)

Afterwards, when he and McDowell were blamed for the defeat, Scott resigned his commission, suggesting General Henry Halleck as his successor. Lincoln instead chose General George B. McClellan, whose overly cautious nature handed victories to the Confederacy throughout the rest of 1861 and into 1862.

Conclusion

Although Scott's Anaconda Plan was officially rejected in 1861, its essential components – the blockade of southern ports and the advance down the Mississippi to cut the Confederacy in two – were implemented. Historians continue to debate the effectiveness of the blockade, but none challenge the importance of the Union's Western Campaign down the Mississippi or the taking of Vicksburg by Ulysses S. Grant on 4 July 1863.

Scott's insistence on the importance of a professionally trained fighting force was also implemented, under General McClellan, in 1862 and, more so, under Grant and Sherman in 1864-1865. Scott, then, could rightly be called the general who mapped the Union victory in the Civil War.

Lieutenant General Winfield Scott in 1862 Charles D. Fredricks & Co. (Public Domain)

Scott played a significant role, however, in more of the United States' history than just that conflict, as noted by scholar John S. D. Eisenhower:

The less remembered role of Winfield Scott was that of the agent of Manifest Destiny, the expansion of the United States from the borders of the original thirteen colonies to the far-off Pacific Ocean.

When Scott first came into service, the United States was a loosely knit federation of states, its borders and its future uncertain. It was filled with ambitious men, some of whom were not completely sold on the United States as a unified country. By the time he left, the republic filled the North American continent as a single nation…
(xiii)

Scott died, age 79, at West Point, New York, of natural causes, on 29 May 1866, having lived long enough to see the war won and the beginning of the Reconstruction Era. He holds the record for the greatest length of service as a general in the United States Army and continues to be celebrated through place names, monuments, and statuary throughout the country whose interests he served throughout his life.