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Schematic plan · American Civil War

Battle of Fredericksburg

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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 wingCentreReserveLeft wingRight wingReserve02 km4 kmN

USA (US Army of the Potomac, 106,007 men under Burnside) attacked Confederacy (Cs Army of Northern Virginia, 72,497 men under Lee) in Virginia. The CAA Database of Battles records 5 hours of fighting on a front of 7.8 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense, and that Confederacy held. Losses: USA 12,653 (12%), Confederacy 4,656 (6%).

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

Burnside

UnitArmMen
USA left wingInfantry25,442
USA centreInfantry33,922
USA right wingInfantry25,442
USA reserveInfantry21,201
BurnsideCommander—
In this plan106,007

Confederacy

Lee

UnitArmMen
Confederacy left wingInfantry17,399
Confederacy centreInfantry23,199
Confederacy right wingInfantry17,399
Confederacy reserveInfantry14,499
LeeCommander—
In this plan72,496

What the sources report

USAConfederacy
Strength, this plan106,00772,497
Losses, this plan12,6534,656

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 194, “Fredericksburg”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
5 hours
Winner
the defender
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Prepared defense
Front width
7.8 km (attacker), 13.2 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
USAattacker106,00712,653——Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew
Confederacydefender72,4974,656——Defensive plan

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.