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Schematic plan · American Civil War

Second Battle of Bull Run

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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 wingReserveHorseHorseLee01 km2 kmN

USA (US Army of Virginia(+), 75,696 men under Pope) attacked Confederacy (Cs Army of Northern Virginia, 48,527 men under Lee) in Virginia. The CAA Database of Battles records 22.5 hours of fighting on a front of 4 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Confederacy held. Losses: USA 14,462 (19%), Confederacy 9,474 (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

USA

Pope

UnitArmMen
USA left wingInfantry18,167
USA centreInfantry24,223
USA right wingInfantry18,167
USA reserveInfantry15,139
PopeCommander—
In this plan75,696

Confederacy

Lee

UnitArmMen
Confederacy left wingInfantry10,982
Confederacy centreInfantry14,643
Confederacy right wingInfantry10,982
Confederacy reserveInfantry9,152
Confederacy cavalry of the leftCavalry1,384
Confederacy cavalry of the rightCavalry1,384
LeeCommander—
In this plan48,527

What the sources report

USAConfederacy
Strength, this plan75,69648,527
Losses, this plan14,4629,474

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 189, “Second Bull Run (Manassas)”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
22.5 hours
Winner
the defender
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
4 km (attacker), 2.4 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
USAattacker75,69614,462——Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew
Confederacydefender48,5279,4742,768—Defensive/offensive plan; Single envelopment; Left flank; Breakthrough; Pursued

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

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.