The
Anaconda Plan is the name applied to an outline strategy for suppressing the
Confederacy at the beginning of the
American Civil War. Proposed by General-in-Chief
Winfield Scott, the plan emphasized the
blockade of the Southern ports, and called for an advance down the
Mississippi River to cut the
South in two. Because the blockade would be rather passive, it was widely derided by the vociferous faction who wanted a more vigorous prosecution of the war, and who likened it to the coils of an
anaconda suffocating its victim. The snake image caught on, giving the proposal its popular name.