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Schematic plan · American Civil War

Battle of Beaver Dam Creek

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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 wingReserveReserve01 km2 kmN

Confederacy (Cs Army of Northern Virginia, 16,808 men under Lee) attacked USA (US Army of the Potomac, 15,631 men under Porter) in Virginia. The CAA Database of Battles records 6 hours of fighting on a front of 3.2 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that USA held. Losses: Confederacy 1,484 (9%), USA 361 (2%).

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

Lee

UnitArmMen
Confederacy left wingInfantry4,034
Confederacy centreInfantry5,379
Confederacy right wingInfantry4,034
Confederacy reserveInfantry3,362
LeeCommander—
In this plan16,809

USA

Porter

UnitArmMen
USA left wingInfantry3,751
USA centreInfantry5,002
USA right wingInfantry3,751
USA reserveInfantry3,126
PorterCommander—
In this plan15,630

What the sources report

ConfederacyUSA
Strength, this plan16,80815,631
Losses, this plan1,484361

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 184, “Mechanicsville”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
6 hours
Winner
the defender
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
3.2 km (attacker), 3.2 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Confederacyattacker16,8081,484——Frontal attack; Repulse
USAdefender15,631361——Defensive plan

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.