The Anaconda Plan was used during the American Civil War to "squeeze" the life out of the South. It was proposed by General Winfield Scott. The plan called for the blockade of the Southern ports. Then an advance down the Mississippi River was to cut the South in two. Like the coils of an anaconda snake suffocating its victim, the south would be squeezed until it returned to the Union. The plan was approved by President Lincoln. Northern Generals, newspapers and the public made fun of the plan. After a year of bloody fighting it was finally put into operation.