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."

Bennett Place in NC holds 100th birthday party for a monument that focuses on national unity stemming from war's largest surrender

The largest surrender during the Civil War occurred at what is now a North Carolina state park. But a granite monument next to reconstructed farm buildings doesn't focus solely on a stinging Southern defeat. Rather, the message is of national unity.

The site manager of Bennett Place State Historic Site near Durham emphasized that point Saturday at a 100^th birthday party for the park and the Unity Monument, which was decorated in festive ribbons for the occasion. (Photo: BPSHS)

“The monument … is a unique in the Civil War world,” Ryan Reed told the crowd minutes before birthday cake was served on a warm and sunny afternoon. “It is unique because it is a monument to peace and not war. It is a monument to both sides.”

The monument has two Corinthian columns, one representing the Confederacy and the other the Union. The lintel across the top of both has the word “UNITY.”

The Rebel surrender in April 1865 occurred after three days of talks between Union Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman and Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston at the James Bennett farm. Days before, Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia and President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

The lintel includes two American shields (Photo: BPSHS)

Most Americans have no idea that Bennett Place witnessed the real end to the war, not Appomattox.

Negotiations were not without controversy. Initially, Sherman and Johnston’s agreement included political terms that were generous to the South. Officials in Washington, angered over the recent assassination of Lincoln, turned them down in favor of purely military terms.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis had ordered Johnston to dissolve his army into guerrilla bands to continue the fight, but the general, who knew continuing the fight was useless without Lee’s forces, disobeyed the order and signed the revised agreement. His surrender ended the war for nearly 90,000 Confederates in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

Johnston and Sherman at the James Bennett farm (Harper's Weekly)

Reed said unlike the carnage at Gettysburg, Antietam and elsewhere, no blood was shed at Bennett Place. “There is big history in a small house.”

The dedication of the Unity Monument in autumn 1923 followed years of neglect of the property by the state and the donation of a few acres by the Samuel Morgan family. The Bennett house where Sherman and Johnston met burned in 1921 – leaving only a stone chimney.

North Carolinians weren’t keen on remembering the war’s end result. But legislators and others thought a sign of unity would make the project possible. Still, the United Daughters of the Confederacy boycotted the dedication because of the defeat. (Interestingly, a UDC chapter helped with Saturday’s event, which drew about 250 people).

According to a state history, the 1923 dedication did indeed focus on national unity and some more contemporary issues.

A reconstructed farm house was erected at the site in the 1960s. Bennett Place became a state historic site a few years later.

Those who drive by or visit the site are drawn to the Unity Monument. The base and monoliths are from Mount Airy, N.C., while the lintel is from Vermont and the copper used for a marker was mined in Montana.

“Done intentionally, 100 years ago, to incorporate materials from all over our nation,” Reed said.

Captured Civil War maps among hundreds now available for viewing and downloading at National Archives site

Sketch of Confederate and Union artillery positions at Battle of Manassas on July 21, 1861

A large number of Confederate maps are among nearly a 1,000 Civil War maps that have been digitized and are available to download, the National Archives said this week.

The maps from the Army Corps of Engineers consist of manuscript, published and annotated maps relating to areas in the Southern states, the archives said. They are in an online catalog unit knows as the Z file.

De Soto Parish, La., map captured from Confederates (National Archives)

The maps mostly cover areas in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia, the archives said in an article.

The Z file unit includes often-requested parish maps of Louisiana captured from the Confederate army.

The file unit has items that were created in the mid-19th century, either during the Civil War, or in the years just before and after the war.

View of Louisiana State House in Baton Rouge (National Archives)

“The records in the file span various subjects including, but not limited to, cities, counties, battlefields, railroads and fortifications,” says the National Archives’ “The Unwritten Record” blog.

The Z file touches on a small amount of maps available in the entire Civil Works Map File series.

Taking in the Southern Museum, Big Shanty

The Great Locomotive Chase, the Southern Museum points out, actually began on foot.

Western & Atlantic Railroad conductor William A. Fuller was shocked to see a group of men commandeer “The General” while passengers and crew were enjoying breakfast at the Lacy Hotel in Big Shanty, Ga., on April 12, 1862.

Fuller and a couple others ran north after his train. He didn’t yet know it had been taken by James Andrews and a group of nearly two dozen Union commandos. Andrews was on a doomed mission to destroy track and disrupt communications.

The conductor ran across a handcar and three trains and 86 miles later he -- along with Confederate horsemen who had been reached by telegraph -- had chased Andrews to Ringgold, a few miles south of Chattanooga, Tenn. Out of fuel and water for the locomotive, Andrews and his party fled, only to be captured.

Eight, including its leader, were later hanged in Atlanta for espionage and conspiracy. Fuller became a Georgia hero.

Today, Big Shanty is known as Kennesaw, a Cobb County suburb about 25 miles northwest of Atlanta. The city lies near Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield and is home to fast-growing Kennesaw State University, whose dorms rise along nearby Interstate 75.

I spent a few hours Thursday at the museum and in downtown Kennesaw, which hosts the Big Shanty Festival this weekend.

I was impressed by the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History, a well-landscaped brick building which rises alongside the busy tracks used by up to 70 CSX trains a day.

The front portion gives an insightful history of the crucial role played by railroads during the Civil War. The exhibits include weapons, photos and uniforms and civilian clothing.

Like almost every aspect of the war, the North had more materiel than the South. In 1860, its rail production was 234,000 tons vs. 26,000 tons. And the Union had an amazing military railroad system. Both sides leveraged tracks to move thousands of troops into Chickamauga, Ga., and Chattanooga.

Another fascinating feature of the Southern Museum is a display on Pullman Porters and a large re-creation of Glover Machine Works, which produced 200 small but versatile locomotives between 1902 and 1930 in nearby Marietta. The family-owned company continued to make pipe and other parts into the 1950s.

The museum acquired Glover tools, parts patterns, locomotives and more when the complex was cleaned out and leveled in the mid-1990s. This part of the museum is a must for railroad buffs because it shows a side of railroading you rarely see.

The facility also has a hands-on Education Center for kids.

A large theater presents a fine 25-minute drama on the Great Locomotive Chase. Outside are photos of the Andrews raiders and several of the key Georgians who went after them. The presentation includes a description of the Medals of Honor the raiders received. One medal on display was posthumously awarded to hanged raider Sgt. John Scott.

After that tribute, you walk in to the room with the “The General,” the museum’s star attraction. Remarkably, the train was reconditioned after the war and made several tours, including during the Civil War centennial in the 1960s.

Although its paint scheme and features changed over the years, “The General” still looks imposing enough. And its boiler is certified to operate through 2019 in the very unlikely chance it will return to the tracks after its 40-year rest.

The only other surviving train involved in the chase, “The Texas,” is housed at the Atlanta Cyclorama. Fuller and crew had to drive it in reverse to catch up with Andrews at Ringgold. Interestingly, the Southern Museum says “The Texas” doesn’t get as much notice as it should, given it was “the true eventual winner” of the race.

Afterward, I crossed the tracks to a small park, home to several signs remembering Big Shanty, Fuller and the Andrews Raiders. Big Shanty was also home to Camp McDonald, which trained Confederate troops. The camp was on land near the current Kennesaw City Hall.

Kennesaw Trains owner Kevin Mills told me business in downtown has been slow over the past few months and a couple of restaurants have relocated or closed. But condos and offices are expected to go up when better times return.

Main Street is also home to Wildman’s Civil War Surplus Shop operated by Dent Myers. Myers in 2008 applauded a U.S. Supreme Court ruling affirming Americans' right to defend themselves with guns.

In 1982, Kennesaw passed a law that every head of household must own a firearm. That law is still on the books.

Nearby, the city is building a pedestrian tunnel so that visitors and locals can walk from one side of the busy tracks to the other.

Unfortunately, it will not be completed in time for this year’s Big Shanty Festival, which is this Saturday and Sunday. It features more than 250 arts and craft booths, a parade and fireworks.

• Click here for more info on the Southern Museum.
• Click here for more info on the Big Shanty Festival.