Abraham Lincoln's crucial blockade order on Southern ports is purchased by Illinois governor and wife and donated to presidential library in Springfield

Lincoln issued this order just after Fort Sumter fell (Photo: ALPLM)

President Abraham Lincoln’s monumental order that launched the “Anaconda Plan,” a strategy intended to place a stranglehold on the Confederacy, has been purchased and donated by Illinois’ governor and first lady to a library dedicated to the 16^th president.

Just a few days after the fall of Fort Sumter in April 1861, Lincoln issued the order, which called for a naval blockade of vital Southern ports, to be imposed in conjunction with land assaults. The seven states cited in the order had seceded from the Union by that time.

The office of Gov. J.B. Pritzker made the donation announcement Tuesday. The news was first reported by the Associated Press.

Pritzker and his wife M.K., who purchased the blockade order on behalf of the people of Illinois, on Tuesday visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield.

The document will be available for viewing in the ALPLM Treasures Gallery beginning Wednesday and will remain on display until February 2025, when it will be transferred to the ALPLM vault for safekeeping, a news release said.

Cartoon of Anaconda Plan with caricatures (Library of Congress)

“To me, this document – and the museum as a whole – serves as a reminder of how far we’ve come,” said the governor. “Despite our divisions and challenges, more than 150 years later, our nation perseveres.” 

Steve Lansdale with Heritage Auctions confirmed to the Picket that the document was sold for $471,000 in July 2023. The document – formally entitled “Order to Affix Seal of the United States to a Proclamation of a Blockade” – had been owned by anonymous private collectors.

Lansdale says the company does not release information on buyers or sellers, and Pritzker’s office declined to provide details on the purchase or price.

Andy Hall, who has written extensively about the blockade, wrote in his Dead Confederates blog that Lincoln’s proclamation “was one of a series of actions and reactions that expanded the conflict between the national government in Washington and that of the seceded southern states. The blockade order was, most directly, a response to Jefferson Davis’ call on April 17 for privateers to obtain Confederate letters of marque to attack U.S. shipping.”

While the one-page order is now at the Lincoln library, the fuller proclamation is kept at the National Archives.

Harper's Weekly depiction of chase of a blockade runner (Library of Congress)

The blockade was meant to prevent the export of cotton from the South to foreign nations and the import of essential supplies into the Confederacy, according to Pritzker’s office.

The Lincoln document reads in full:

"I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of State to affix the Seal of the United States to a Proclamation setting on foot a Blockade of the ports of the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, dated this day and signed by me and for so doing this shall be his warrant. Abraham Lincoln, Washington, 19th April, 1861."

Dr. Ian Hunt, the ALPLM’s acquisitions director, said the order captures Lincoln at an unprecedented moment of crisis.

“A lesser president might have dithered and delayed while searching for a ‘safe’ option,” Hunt said in a statement. “President Lincoln acted boldly by ordering a blockade. This is the symbolic tip of the spear in his long struggle to save the nation and, ultimately, end slavery."

Hunt, in a library Facebook video, provided some historical background to the Lincoln order. The president's Cabinet had some reservations about the idea, including the possibility it could be construed as recognition of the Confederacy as a nation. Union Gen. Winfield Scott argued a total blockade would be needed to crush the rebellion. 

The blockade required monitoring 3,500 miles of Atlantic and Gulf coastline with180 possible ports of entry, according to the library. “The United States had about 40 working ships at the time. By war’s end, it had 671. The Navy destroyed or captured about 1,500 Southern blockade runners over the course of the war.”

Hunt said the addition of the document to the library is "phenomenal."