Schematic plan · American Civil War

Battle of Cross Keys

8 June 1862
Virginia
Victory for Confederacy

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 of W. Va., 10,500 men under Fremont) attacked Confederacy (Cs Valley Army, 5,000 men under Ewell) in Virginia. The CAA Database of Battles records 3 hours of fighting on a front of 2.8 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Confederacy held. Losses: USA 684 (7%), Confederacy 288 (6%).

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

Fremont

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	2,412
USA centre	Infantry	3,216
USA right wing	Infantry	2,412
USA reserve	Infantry	2,010
USA artillery (30 guns)	Artillery	450
Fremont	Commander	—
In this plan		10,500

Confederacy

Ewell

Unit	Arm	Men
Confederacy left wing	Infantry	1,142
Confederacy centre	Infantry	1,523
Confederacy right wing	Infantry	1,142
Confederacy reserve	Infantry	952
Confederacy artillery (16 guns)	Artillery	240
Ewell	Commander	—
In this plan		4,999

What the sources report

	USA	Confederacy
Strength, this plan	10,500	5,000
Losses, this plan	684	288

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 181, “Cross Keys”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 3 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 2.8 km (attacker), 2.8 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	10,500	684	—	30	Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew
Confederacydefender	5,000	288	—	16	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Penetration

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

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 181 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Cross Keys · 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.