Although a century and a half has elapsed since the end of the Civil War, the importance of the Anaconda Plan remains to some extent a matter of debate. Clearly, the war was not the relatively bloodless affair that General Scott promised in his original proposal. Most historians regard this as merely a modification of the basic strategy in the course of events. At least one historian, however, denies that there ever was anything like a coherent strategy for subduing the South. Rowena Reed contends that the central government in Washington was unable to impose its will on the field commanders, so that the war was a series of independent campaigns, each of which was conducted according to the whims of whatever general happened to be in charge. According to her view, the Anaconda is a later conceptual imposition on events for which order did not exist at the time that they took place.