Schematic plan · American Civil War

Battle of Belmont

7 November 1861
Missouri
Victory for USA

All battles The event in the chronicle Wikipedia

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.

USA (US Army, 3,144 men under Grant) attacked Confederacy (Cs Army, 5,000 men under Polk) in Missouri. The CAA Database of Battles records 6.3 hours of fighting on a front of 1 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that USA won. Losses: USA 607 (19%), Confederacy 642 (13%).

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

Grant

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	733
USA centre	Infantry	977
USA right wing	Infantry	733
USA reserve	Infantry	611
USA artillery (6 guns)	Artillery	90
Grant	Commander	—
In this plan		3,144

Confederacy

Polk

Unit	Arm	Men
Confederacy left wing	Infantry	1,178
Confederacy centre	Infantry	1,571
Confederacy right wing	Infantry	1,178
Confederacy reserve	Infantry	982
Confederacy artillery (6 guns)	Artillery	90
Polk	Commander	—
In this plan		4,999

What the sources report

	USA	Confederacy
Strength, this plan	3,144	5,000
Losses, this plan	607	642

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 173, “Belmont”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 6.3 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 1 km (attacker), 1 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	3,144	607	0	6	Frontal attack; Penetration; Withdrew
Confederacydefender	5,000	642	0	6	Defensive/offensive plan; Single envelopment; Left flank

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · intelligence +1 · initiative +1

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

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 173 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Belmont · CC-BY-SA-4.0

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.