What was the ANACONDA plan?

How did the Anaconda Plan affect the Civil War?

• Was the Anaconda Plan any help to the civil war? Did it slow down the south, and help the union? What was the affect of the anaconda plan to the civil war, and did it change the outcome of the war at all? Was it important to the civil war, and how? <:-/ Please answer! Thnx in advance~~! :)

• Answer:

  It did help defeat the Confederates. It did that by seriously impeding their ability to resupply their troops and to ship their products overseas. The south could not produce enough weapons and other necessary military equipment, nor could they produce enough medicines to care for their soldiers and their civilian populace, and so had to trade goods like cotton and tobacco for them. At first, the Anaconda Plan - an attempt to blockade Confederate ports - was almost a laughable failure. But as the Civil War dragged on, and the Union build more warships, the blockade became more and more efficient - to the point that price inflation in the south was absolutely ruinous. A hundred pounds of flour, for instance, cost a few dollars when the Civil War began, and cost well over a hundred dollars in the last year of the war - IF it could be had at all! The Civil War was the nastiest, most costly thing ever to happen to the south. But then, that's war. "War is terrible. There's no use trying to reform it. The more terrible it is, the sooner it will be over!" ...General William Tecumseh Sherman