The map of Scott's Anaconda Plan becomes a lesson in how geography and industrial structure determine whether a blockade can work. In this analysis, the Confederacy lacked the east-west railway capacity needed to redistribute goods and personnel across its territory. Its useful river transport generally led toward the sea, where Union naval control could close the exits. Industrial concentration and dependence on imported locomotives and manufactured goods made that transport weakness still more serious. Northern industry could maintain a navy and draw raw materials from overseas, while the Canadian border offered another supply route. Blockade became strategically powerful because it reinforced the Confederacy's internal logistics failures at the same time that Union naval power closed the coast.
Chapter · 7:31-10:27
Why Confederate transport and industry favored the Anaconda Plan
The Anaconda Plan exploited a Confederacy whose river network led toward blockaded coasts, whose east-west rail connections were weak, and whose industry could not readily replace imported machinery, while Union industry and external supply routes sustained the northern war effort.