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Schematic plan · American Civil War

Battle of Wilson's Creek

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A schematic plan, generated from the statistics of the CAA Database of Battles: the armies' size and width, the hours of fighting, the plan of attack and the outcome are as recorded; the ground and the positions are not.
Rolling, Mixed groundCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveGunsGuns0500 m1 kmN

USA (US Army, 5,400 men under Lyon) attacked Confederacy (Cs Army, 10,175 men under Mcculloch) in Missouri. The CAA Database of Battles records 6 hours of fighting on a front of 2 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Confederacy held. Losses: USA 1,235 (23%), Confederacy 1,095 (11%).

This plan is generated from those figures. It shows the shape of the battle the database describes: the size and width of the armies, the plan of attack and the outcome. It does not show where the units actually stood.

The armies

USA

Lyon

UnitArmMen
USA left wingInfantry1,238
USA centreInfantry1,651
USA right wingInfantry1,238
USA reserveInfantry1,032
USA artillery (16 guns)Artillery240
LyonCommander—
In this plan5,399

Confederacy

Mcculloch

UnitArmMen
Confederacy left wingInfantry2,388
Confederacy centreInfantry3,184
Confederacy right wingInfantry2,388
Confederacy reserveInfantry1,990
Confederacy artillery (15 guns)Artillery225
MccullochCommander—
In this plan10,175

What the sources report

USAConfederacy
Strength, this plan5,40010,175
Losses, this plan1,2351,095

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 172, “Wilson'S Creek”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
6 hours
Winner
the defender
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
2 km (attacker), 2.4 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
USAattacker5,4001,235—16Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew
Confederacydefender10,1751,095—15Defensive/offensive plan

Attacker’s advantages initiative +1 · surprise +2

CDB90 (US Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 1990), tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold; data under ODC-BY 1.0.

Notes

On this reconstruction

Generated automatically from the statistics in CDB90. Frontages, depths, distances, the order of events and the terrain are schematic: they follow the recorded strengths, front widths, hours of fighting, tactical plan and outcome, not maps or accounts of the battle. The sources give no hours; the timing is conjectural.

Sources

Facts gathered from Wikidata (CC0), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Wikimedia Commons (licence per file); the plan and its text are timeastra’s own.