Winfield Scott: the grand old man of the army

Scott fought on the Niagara frontier in the War of 1812, leading a brigade at the Battle of Chippawa in July 1814, and in 1847 commanded the American army that stormed Chapultepec and took Mexico City. In the Civil War he directed strategy from Washington and never led troops in the field.²

What was Winfield Scott famous for?

Scott was famous for capturing Mexico City in 1847 with an army smaller than the forces opposing it, and for the Anaconda Plan of 1861, which proposed to blockade the Confederacy and take the Mississippi. He was also known for strict discipline, which earned him the nickname "Old Fuss and Feathers."³

The War of 1812

Scott was born on 13 June 1786 on his family's farm in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, studied at the College of William and Mary and read law in Petersburg. Commissioned a captain of light artillery in 1808, he openly criticized his superior, General James Wilkinson, and a court-martial suspended him for a year in 1810. In October 1812 he led the American landing party at Queenston Heights, where the invaders were beaten and he was taken prisoner. Exchanged, he helped capture Fort George in May 1813.⁴

In March 1814, at 27, Scott became a brigadier general. He drilled his brigade hard in a camp of instruction near Buffalo, and the American Battlefield Trust dates his nickname, "Old Fuss and Feathers," to this period; the Army's Center of Military History links it to his attention to detail and fondness for elaborate uniforms. In July 1814 the brigade won at Chippawa and bore the brunt of the fighting at Lundy's Lane, where a musket ball struck Scott in the left shoulder and put him out of the war. He received a brevet promotion to major general.⁵

Between the wars: regulations, crises and removal

After 1815 Scott helped standardize the army's drill and wrote its General Regulations, a code of army procedure. When he was passed over for promotion in 1828 he offered to resign, but the resignation was not accepted. He was sent to South Carolina during the Nullification Crisis of 1832, and his campaign in the Second Seminole War in Florida in 1836 failed and led to a court of inquiry, which approved his conduct.⁷

In 1838 Scott oversaw the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation from its homeland in the Southeast, part of the Trail of Tears; Encyclopedia Virginia calls the removal often violent. In 1839 he helped settle a border dispute between Maine and Canada. In 1841 he became Commanding General of the Army, its most senior post, with the rank of major general (the American Battlefield Trust dates this to 5 July, Encyclopedia Virginia to 25 June).⁸

How did Scott capture Mexico City?

By sea and then overland. Scott's army landed near Veracruz on 9 March 1847 and took the port after a siege of about 20 days. It then marched inland, beating Mexican forces at Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco and Molino del Rey, stormed Chapultepec on 13 September and entered the capital on 14 September (the American Battlefield Trust says 15 September).⁹

Scott was usually outnumbered; the Army's Center of Military History writes that his leading force rarely exceeded 10,000 men. At Cerro Gordo on 18 April an engineer captain, Robert E. Lee, scouted a route around the Mexican position, and the flank attack took about 3,000 prisoners. After a long halt at Puebla, the army crossed the lava field of the Pedregal to win at Contreras and Churubusco on 19 and 20 August, then took Molino del Rey on 8 September.¹¹

Cutting loose from his supply line was a gamble. Scott recorded in his memoirs that the Duke of Wellington, following the march on a map, said "Scott is lost," and Encyclopedia Virginia writes that Wellington declared the maneuver hopeless. Many future Civil War commanders served in this army, among them Ulysses S. Grant, George McClellan and George Meade.¹²

Scott then governed the occupied capital. He enforced strict discipline, paid for supplies and worked with the Catholic Church to limit civilian suffering, and he sent part of the funds collected in Mexico home to found an asylum for disabled soldiers. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war on 2 February 1848. Congress later made him a brevet lieutenant general, the first since George Washington; Encyclopedia Virginia dates this to 7 March 1855, backdated to 1847, while the National Park Service places it at the end of the war.¹³

What was the Anaconda Plan?

The Anaconda Plan was Scott's 1861 strategy for defeating the Confederacy: a naval blockade of the Southern coasts and an advance down the Mississippi River to split the South and cut it off economically. The nickname compared it to a snake slowly squeezing its prey. Lincoln proclaimed the blockade on 19 April 1861.¹⁴

Scott had kept command of the army through the 1850s, even after losing the 1852 presidential election as the Whig candidate to Franklin Pierce, who had served as a brigadier general in his army in Mexico, by 254 electoral votes to 42. When the Deep South seceded he was a Virginian who stayed loyal to the Union. Aged 74 and in poor health, he wanted Lee to lead the Union armies in the field; Lee resigned instead when Virginia left the Union.¹⁶

After the Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run on 21 July 1861, George McClellan took charge of the main army in the East and soon clashed with Scott. On 1 November 1861 Scott's offer to retire was accepted, and McClellan succeeded him.¹⁷

Was the Anaconda Plan successful?

In the long run, largely yes. The blockade began in April 1861, but Encyclopedia Virginia notes Lincoln set the rest of the plan aside for a quick strike into Virginia. The National Park Service and Encyclopedia Virginia both credit Scott's strategy with shaping the Union victory, though the plan did not foresee the hard war in Virginia and Georgia.¹⁸

How did Winfield Scott die?

Scott died at West Point, New York, on 29 May 1866, aged 79, two weeks before his 80th birthday. He had lived to see the Union win the Civil War. After a funeral at the West Point chapel on 1 June, attended by many military and national dignitaries, he was buried in the West Point Cemetery.¹⁹

The National Park Service calls him the "Grand Old Man of the Army." He served under 14 presidents, from Thomas Jefferson to Abraham Lincoln, and in 1864 published a two-volume memoir. In 1867 Congress authorized an equestrian statue of him by Henry Kirke Brown, cast from bronze cannons captured in the Mexico City campaign and erected in 1874 at the center of Scott Circle in Washington; DC Historic Sites calls it the first memorial to a Civil War general placed in one of the city's traffic circles or squares.²⁰