For the historians who contend that a rational plan existed, the debate, like the plan itself, has two parts. The importance of the campaign to capture the Mississippi River and thereby lop off the Trans-Mississippi is acknowledged. Virtually all present-day historians agree that the Union's Western campaign was at least as significant as that in the East. To the extent that fighting in the West before mid-1863 can be regarded as preparing for or culminating in the capture of Vicksburg, the Anaconda has been validated.