Schematic plan · American Civil War

Second Battle of Corinth

3 October 1862
Mississippi
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 the Mississippi, 22,000 men under Rosecrans) attacked Confederacy (Cs Army of Western Tennessee, 21,147 men under Van Dorn) in Mississippi. The CAA Database of Battles records 10.5 hours of fighting on a front of 4 km, a frontal attack, double envelopment against prepared defense, and that Confederacy held. Losses: USA 4,233 (19%), Confederacy 2,520 (12%).

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

Rosecrans

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	5,280
USA centre	Infantry	7,040
USA right wing	Infantry	5,280
USA reserve	Infantry	4,400
Rosecrans	Commander	—
In this plan		22,000

Confederacy

Van Dorn

Unit	Arm	Men
Confederacy left wing	Infantry	5,075
Confederacy centre	Infantry	6,767
Confederacy right wing	Infantry	5,075
Confederacy reserve	Infantry	4,229
Van Dorn	Commander	—
In this plan		21,146

What the sources report

	USA	Confederacy
Strength, this plan	22,000	21,147
Losses, this plan	4,233	2,520

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 192, “Corinth”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 10.5 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense
Front width: 4 km (attacker), 3.4 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	22,000	4,233	—	—	Frontal attack; Double envelopment; Breakthrough; Pursued
Confederacydefender	21,147	2,520	—	—	Defensive plan; Withdrew

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. 192 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Second Battle of Corinth · 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.