The Union Blockade
One of the primary strategies of the Civil War on the part of the Union was known as the Anaconda Plan. Proposed in the opening days of the war and strongly backed by Abraham Lincoln, the plan called for the powerful US Navy to blockade all Southern ports, seize New Orleans and the major cities on the Ohio and Mississippi, (Memphis, Vicksburg, Louisville and Cincinnati), and gradually starve the south.
As the war went on Cavalry raids by the ever more efficient Union horsemen destroyed the critical farmlands which were the only source of food to the Confederate troops, medicines were interdicted by Naval resources, and new clothing and blankets became scarce since the South lacked sufficient factories to produce the minimum needed.
Southern civilians suffered enormous privations. Southern troops in the field suffered even greater. Forced to live off of the land in war-ravaged Virginia and Tennessee, the Confederate armies found few crops and little livestock on which to subsist. By 1864, the Southern railway system, essential to moving what little supplies were available, was largely in the control of their enemies from the North. Into this cauldron of want, the North thrust the responsibility of caring for prisoners of war when the South could barely care for itself. The cancellation of any exchange program burdening the South with more mouths to feed ensured the suffering of the mouths placed in their care, a seemingly callous but militarily justifiable decision.
There is little doubt that the success of the Union strategy caused great suffering in the South, and by extension to those prisoners held by the South. This has often been cited as an example of Grant’s inhumanity and for his callous regard of casualties. Both arguments are unfair. The end of the prisoner exchange was decided well above Grant’s rank – today it would be said to be “above his paygrade” and occurred well before he was in charge of all Union armies. He did recognize the need for it, despite the hardship it caused, and like the good soldier he was he supported it publicly while lamenting it in the privacy of his personal diary.