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Schematic plan · American Civil War

Battle of Champion Hill

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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 wingReserveHorseHorse02 km4 kmN

USA (US Army, 29,373 men under Grant) attacked Confederacy (Cs Army, 20,000 men under Pemberton) in Mississippi. The CAA Database of Battles records 5.5 hours of fighting on a front of 4 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that USA won. Losses: USA 2,441 (8%), Confederacy 3,851 (19%).

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

Grant

UnitArmMen
USA left wingInfantry7,050
USA centreInfantry9,399
USA right wingInfantry7,050
USA reserveInfantry5,875
GrantCommander—
In this plan29,374

Confederacy

Pemberton

UnitArmMen
Confederacy left wingInfantry4,680
Confederacy centreInfantry6,240
Confederacy right wingInfantry4,680
Confederacy reserveInfantry3,900
Confederacy cavalry of the leftCavalry250
Confederacy cavalry of the rightCavalry250
PembertonCommander—
In this plan20,000

What the sources report

USAConfederacy
Strength, this plan29,37320,000
Losses, this plan2,4413,851

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 197, “Champion'S Hill”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
5.5 hours
Winner
the attacker
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
4 km (attacker), 6.8 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
USAattacker29,3732,441——Frontal attack; Penetration; Pursued
Confederacydefender20,0003,851500—Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Penetration; Repulse; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages leadership +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

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.