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Schematic plan · American Civil War

Battle of Shiloh

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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 wingReserveGunsGuns02 km4 kmN

Confederacy (Cs Army of Mississippi, 40,355 men under A. S. Johnston) attacked USA (US Armies of the Tennessee and Ohio, 66,812 men under Grant) in Tennessee. The CAA Database of Battles records 21.5 hours of fighting on a front of 6 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that USA held. Losses: Confederacy 10,699 (27%), USA 13,047 (20%).

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

A. S. Johnston

UnitArmMen
Confederacy left wingInfantry9,296
Confederacy centreInfantry12,395
Confederacy right wingInfantry9,296
Confederacy reserveInfantry7,747
Confederacy artillery (108 guns)Artillery1,620
A. S. JohnstonCommander—
In this plan40,354

USA

Grant

UnitArmMen
USA left wingInfantry15,423
USA centreInfantry20,564
USA right wingInfantry15,423
USA reserveInfantry12,852
USA artillery (170 guns)Artillery2,550
GrantCommander—
In this plan66,812

What the sources report

ConfederacyUSA
Strength, this plan40,35566,812
Losses, this plan10,69913,047

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 178, “Shiloh”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
21.5 hours
Winner
the defender
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
6 km (attacker), 8 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Confederacyattacker40,35510,699—108Frontal attack; Penetration; Repulse; Withdrew
USAdefender66,81213,047—170Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Penetration

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.