Schematic plan · American Civil War

Battle of Savage's Station Battle of White Oak Swamp Battle of Glendale

29 June 1862
Virginia
Victory for USA

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.

Confederacy (Cs Army of Northern Virginia, 86,748 men under Lee) attacked USA (US Army of the Potomac, 83,345 men under Sumner, Heintzelman & Porter) in Virginia. The CAA Database of Battles records 10 hours of fighting on a front of 3.2 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that USA held. Losses: Confederacy 4,241 (5%), USA 4,443 (5%).

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

Unit	Arm	Men
Confederacy left wing	Infantry	20,820
Confederacy centre	Infantry	27,759
Confederacy right wing	Infantry	20,820
Confederacy reserve	Infantry	17,350
Lee	Commander	—
In this plan		86,749

USA

Sumner · Heintzelman · Porter

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	20,003
USA centre	Infantry	26,670
USA right wing	Infantry	20,003
USA reserve	Infantry	16,669
Sumner, Heintzelman & Porter	Commander	—
In this plan		83,345

What the sources report

	Confederacy	USA
Strength, this plan	86,748	83,345
Losses, this plan	4,241	4,443

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 186, “Glendale-Frayser'S Farm”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 10 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)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Confederacyattacker	86,748	4,241	—	—	Frontal attack; Repulse
USAdefender	83,345	4,443	—	—	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

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 186 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Savage's Station Battle of White Oak Swamp Battle of Glendale · 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.