Scott's Great Snake

The Anaconda Plan was proposed in 1861 by Union General Winfield Scott to win the American Civil War with minimal loss of life, enveloping the Confederacy by blockade at sea and control of the Mississippi River.
Major General George B. McClellan, a rising military star in Ohio, proposed an overall strategy for the war directly to President Abraham Lincoln, one that emphasized the part his army could play. Old fuss and feather's (as the men liked to call Scott), wrote a letter to McClellan on May 3, 1861, stating:
It is the design of the Government to raise 25,000 additional regular troops, and 60,000 volunteers, for three years. ... We rely greatly on the sure operation of a complete blockade of the Atlantic and Gulf ports soon to commence. In connection with such blockade, we propose a powerful movement down the Mississippi to the ocean, with a cordon of posts at proper points ... the object being to clear out and keep open this great line of communication in connection with the strict blockade of the seaboard, so as to envelop the insurgent States and bring them to terms with less bloodshed than by any other plan.
– Winfield Scott, letter to McClellan