Short answers, pulled from the story.
Winfield Scott was an American general who served as Commanding General of the United States Army from 1841 to 1861, the longest tenure of any officer in that role. He fought in the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Black Hawk War, and the early stages of the Civil War, and historians generally rank him among the most accomplished generals in U.S. history.
The Anaconda Plan was a Civil War strategy Scott developed that called for Union forces to capture the Mississippi River and establish a naval blockade of Southern ports. By cutting off the eastern Confederacy from its resources, Scott aimed to force surrender with minimal casualties on both sides. Northern newspapers mocked the plan, but the strategy Grant used to win the war followed the same logic.
Scott earned the nickname Old Fuss and Feathers for his insistence on proper military bearing, courtesy, appearance, and discipline. He acquired it after the War of 1812 while headquartered in New York City, where his strict standards for military conduct stood out to his peers and subordinates.
Scott won the Whig presidential nomination on the 53rd ballot at the 1852 Whig National Convention, but lost decisively to Democrat Franklin Pierce. Scott won four states and 44 percent of the popular vote; Pierce won just under 51 percent of the popular vote and a large majority of the electoral vote, the worst defeat in Whig Party history.
Scott commanded the invasion that began with the landing of 12,000 men near Veracruz on the 9th of March 1847 and ended with the capture of Mexico City on the 14th of September 1847. He defeated Santa Anna's armies at Cerro Gordo, Contreras, and Churubusco before taking the fortress of Chapultepec, and he supported envoy Nicholas Trist's negotiations that produced the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on the 2nd of February 1848.
Scott died at West Point, New York, on the morning of the 29th of May 1866, at age 79. President Andrew Johnson ordered flags flown at half-staff, and his funeral was attended by Union generals including Ulysses S. Grant, George G. Meade, George H. Thomas, and John Schofield. He is buried at the West Point Cemetery.