The military strategy, known as the Anaconda Plan, was proposed by the Union General Winfield Scott. This was early on in the American Civil war. His plan had three main parts, part one was to blockade all Confederate states Southern and Eastern ports, part two was to take control of the Mississippi river which would split the South, and finally take control of the Tennessee valley and march to the coast though Georgia.
Since this plan was rather aggressive, people compared it to an anaconda trapping and suffocating its victim, this gave the military strategy its famous name.