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Schematic plan · American Civil War

Battle of Fort Donelson

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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 wingReserveLeft wingRight wingReserveGuns0250 m500 mN

Confederacy (Cs Army, 21,000 men under Floyd) attacked USA (US Army, 27,000 men under Grant) in Tennessee. The CAA Database of Battles records 9.7 hours of fighting on a front of 1.1 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that USA held. Losses: Confederacy 2,000 (10%), USA 2,609 (10%).

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

Floyd

UnitArmMen
Confederacy left wingInfantry4,990
Confederacy centreInfantry6,653
Confederacy right wingInfantry4,990
Confederacy reserveInfantry4,158
Confederacy artillery (14 guns)Artillery210
FloydCommander—
In this plan21,001

USA

Grant

UnitArmMen
USA left wingInfantry6,480
USA centreInfantry8,640
USA right wingInfantry6,480
USA reserveInfantry5,400
GrantCommander—
In this plan27,000

What the sources report

ConfederacyUSA
Strength, this plan21,00027,000
Losses, this plan2,0002,609

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 175, “Fort Donelson”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
9.7 hours
Winner
the defender
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Cold, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
1.1 km (attacker), 1.1 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Confederacyattacker21,0002,000—14Frontal attack; Penetration; Withdrew
USAdefender27,0002,609——Defensive/offensive plan; Pursued

Attacker’s advantages 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

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.