Schematic plan · American Civil War

Battle of Malvern Hill

1 July 1862
Virginia
Victory for USA

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.

Confederacy (Cs Army of Northern Virginia, 82,507 men under Lee) attacked USA (US Army of the Potomac, 78,902 men under Mcclellan) in Virginia. The CAA Database of Battles records 3.5 hours of fighting on a front of 1.6 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that USA held. Losses: Confederacy 5,355 (6%), USA 3,214 (4%).

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	19,802
Confederacy centre	Infantry	26,402
Confederacy right wing	Infantry	19,802
Confederacy reserve	Infantry	16,501
Lee	Commander	—
In this plan		82,507

USA

Mcclellan

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	18,936
USA centre	Infantry	25,249
USA right wing	Infantry	18,936
USA reserve	Infantry	15,780
Mcclellan	Commander	—
In this plan		78,901

What the sources report

	Confederacy	USA
Strength, this plan	82,507	78,902
Losses, this plan	5,355	3,214

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 187, “Malvern Hill”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 3.5 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 1.6 km (attacker), 3.2 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Confederacyattacker	82,507	5,355	—	—	Frontal attack; Repulse
USAdefender	78,902	3,214	—	—	Defensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages momentum +1 · 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. 187 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Malvern Hill · 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.