EDWARD O'DONNELL: The Anaconda Plan was the original idea of General Winfield Scott. He was the commander of the United States Army and the Union forces at the beginning of the war. And he's a senior figure. He's quite old and he's a hero of the Mexican-American war in the late 1840s.

And he draws up this elaborate plan essentially to surround and strangle the South. Put up a blockade around the coastline. And then have armies envelope the South and cut it off from the outside.

And that's why it's called the Anaconda Plan. Because an Anaconda snake strangles its victims. And it was pooh poohed by a lot of people when he rolled this out because it seemed it was so deliberate, and so slow, and so methodical, and what people wanted, especially in the North, was a decisive March to victory.

Go and take Richmond. Put down this rebellion immediately. And Scott understood that it was probably going to take a lot longer than that. Just because you felt that your cause was righteous didn't mean you could end the war with one fell swoop. You had to plan methodically.

And ultimately his plan, the essence of his plan of surrounding and strangling the Confederacy was precisely what worked.