A student asked me this question during class on the Civil War. I think it's interesting because I was not at all prepared to talk about zoological history in the United States during the Civil War. I know Scott didn't use the term; instead, it was nicknamed in newspapers. But other, more straightforward, names could have been used.
How familiar would the average American have been with this exotic animal? I know the Philadelphia Zoo was the first European modeled Zoological Garden, but the war delayed its opening until 1874. Were there travel narratives that described the Anaconda? Were these snakes brought back to the US at all? If so, by whom and when? Are there any other references to the anaconda from the period? Or, is there any evidence that the "anaconda plan" sparked interest in the animal?
'The Anaconda is tightening its folds' and at every fold the South cries aloud. The following bit of merry non-sense, which has the merit of being 'good to sing' may possibly enliven more than one camp-fire, ere the last fold of the 'big sarpent' has given the final stifle to the un-fed-eralists.
...
THE 'ANACONDA'
..
Won't it make them stop and ponder?
Yes! 't will make them stop and ponder!
What? - The fearful Anaconda!
(All.) Yes! The fearful Anaconda!
(Chorus) Stop and ponder! - Anaconda!
Big and fearful, big and fearful,
Big and fearful Anaconda!
...
Isn't that the gallow high there?
Yes! That is the gallows high there!
And Jeff Davis that I spy there?
(All.) 'Tis Jeff Davis that you spy there.
(Chorus) Hanging high there, Davis spy there.
This song and its introduction were printed in an 1862 issue of The Continental Monthly, a short-lived but substantial magazine of literature and politics with an obvious abolitionist bent. While we can expect the reader to have been comparatively more educated, it's clear that this was written with the expectation that the audience would know about both the "Anaconda Plan" and actual anacondas.
Where might they have heard of an anaconda?
For one, it does appear in European and American literature. Edward Bulwer-Lytton, of "It was a dark and stormy night" fame, frequently referenced anacondas in similes or to evoke exoticism. In 1809, the early Gothic author Matthew Lewis published a proto-horror story about a dangerous anaconda in Ceylon. Yet this isn't a regular anaconda. It's... armored?
Grasping his dagger with firm and steady hand, he struck it with repeated blows between the impenetrable scales of his enemy, sought out with inconceivable address the most tender parts to strike, and at length succeeded in giving her so deep and so well-placed a wound, that it must needs have worked her up to the most extreme pitch of pain and fury; for suddenly I beheld him only girdled by a single fold of the anaconda's tail, with which (in the same manner that one who has unexpectedly grasped a nettle, throws it away) she hurled the poor wretch into the air far away, till I lost him among the surrounding bushes.
The exaggerated features of this specimen is frequent in the literature of the period. A story in The Mirror, a cheap and widely distributed London magazine, describes a French expedition to Guyana that encountered a 30-foot anaconda. An 1848 abridged (and uncreditted) American reprinting of Lewis' story was preceded in its publication by a description of the "30 to 40 foot long" Boa Constrictor "found in South America," "the larger Indian islands," 'Java," and "the burning deserts of Africa." The Boa also gets this unfortunate illustration.
The travelogue was a predominant form of literature during the 19th-century and was a principle manner for Western audiences to experience Latin America and the Far East. There are reference to anacondas in an 1803 travelogue by Robert Percival and in an 1849 account by Charles Pridham. Daniel Parish Kidder's Sketches of a Residence and Travel in Brazil mentions anacondas several times. This book went through three editions in its first year and received substantial press from the likes of The Princeton Review. An abridged version was even placed in New York school libraries.
Americans could have also seen these giant snakes and fairs and circuses, which often featured "menageries" of exciting animals. The tradition of collecting exotic animals was already established in antiquity; Ptolemy II sent an expedition into Ethiopia to find rare reptiles, and they likely came back with a African rock python comparable to the giant creatures of the quoted literature. The Greek documentation of this discovery would seed the idea of giant snakes in the European conciousness. By the 19th-century, the voyages of naturalists had sparked interest in and created the means to acquire rare animals specimens, while more Americans were living near urban centers that could support permanent or traveling attractions. An 1841 newspaper in Cleveland advertised a fair whose attractions included:
the great living Serpent, from Java, declared by naturalists A Real Anaconda. Admission only 12-1/2 cents. Doors open from 6-1/2 to 8-1/2 every evening.
If you lived in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 1839, you could pay 25 cents to see J. E. W. Hobby's traveling serpent collection, which included:
an immense Anaconda, or Terror of Ceylon, the Boa Constrictor or Strangling Serpent of Java, the Pompoo or Python from Madras, also that extraordinary Reptile, the Amphis Beana, from Calcutaa, the connecting link between the Serpent and the Worm
An urban legend about Welch & Delevan's Great National Circus, a large company in the 1840s, claimed that its prize Anaconda choked on a rabbit and died, but was preserved in a whiskey barrel and given the doctor who treated it. The unfortunate labeling meant led an unfortunate soul to tap the barrel a suffer a terrible sickness.
While it's difficult to judge what the "average" American might know about anacondas, it's safe to say that if someone in 1841 Cleveland had the chance to see a live one, much of the country would be familiar with the term. Who knew Ohioans could learn such long words!