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Schematic plan · American Civil War

Battle of Mill Springs

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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 groundCentreCentreLeft wingRight wingLeft wingRight wingReserveReserveGunsGuns0200 m400 mN

Confederacy (Cs Army, 4,000 men under Zollicoffer) attacked USA (US Army, 4,000 men under Thomas) in Kentucky. The CAA Database of Battles records 10.5 hours of fighting on a front of 0.6 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that USA held. Losses: Confederacy 533 (13%), USA 262 (7%).

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

Confederacy

Zollicoffer

UnitArmMen
Confederacy left wingInfantry917
Confederacy centreInfantry1,222
Confederacy right wingInfantry917
Confederacy reserveInfantry764
Confederacy artillery (12 guns)Artillery180
ZollicofferCommander—
In this plan4,000

USA

Thomas

UnitArmMen
USA left wingInfantry935
USA centreInfantry1,246
USA right wingInfantry935
USA reserveInfantry779
USA artillery (7 guns)Artillery105
ThomasCommander—
In this plan4,000

What the sources report

ConfederacyUSA
Strength, this plan4,0004,000
Losses, this plan533262

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 174, “Mill Springs”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
10.5 hours
Winner
the defender
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Wet, Light precipitation, Temperate, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
0.6 km (attacker), 0.8 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Confederacyattacker4,000533—12Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew with heavy losses
USAdefender4,000262—7Defensive/offensive plan; Double envelopment; Pursued

Attacker’s advantages none recorded

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.