The expedition was part of Winfield Scott's overall Anaconda Plan, which aimed at closing blockade-running ports inside the Outer Banks.

The Anaconda Plan called for a large Union blockade of the Confederacy, and included plans to control the Mississippi River.

Capture of the Mississippi River was one of the key tenets of Union General Winfield Scott's Anaconda Plan.

Part of Winfield Scott's "Anaconda Plan" called for the division of the Confederacy by seizing control of the Mississippi River.

McClellan rejected the tenets of Scott's Anaconda Plan, favoring instead an overwhelming grand battle, in the Napoleonic style.

Squadrons of vessels, from all over the world, were recalled and reassigned to new blockading forces for the Anaconda Plan.

The Anaconda Plan or Scott's Great Snake is the name widely applied to an outline strategy for subduing the seceding states in the American Civil War.

The germ of Scott's Anaconda Plan for suppressing the insurrection is seen in the endorsement.

Although almost a century and a half has elapsed since the end of the Civil War, the importance of the Anaconda Plan remains to some extent a matter of debate.

The campaign was planned from the outset of the war as an integral part of the Anaconda Plan for economic 'strangulation' of the South.