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Schematic plan · American Civil War

Battle of Cold Harbor

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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 wingReserveHorseHorse02 km4 kmN

USA (US Army of the Potomac(+), 107,907 men under Grant) attacked Confederacy (Cs Army of Northern Virginia, 59,000 men under Lee) in Virginia. The CAA Database of Battles records 9 hours of fighting on a front of 9.6 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense, and that Confederacy held. Losses: USA 11,000 (10%), Confederacy 1,500 (3%).

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 wingInfantry22,783
USA centreInfantry30,378
USA right wingInfantry22,783
USA reserveInfantry18,986
USA cavalry of the leftCavalry6,488
USA cavalry of the rightCavalry6,488
GrantCommander—
In this plan107,906

Confederacy

Lee

UnitArmMen
Confederacy left wingInfantry14,160
Confederacy centreInfantry18,880
Confederacy right wingInfantry14,160
Confederacy reserveInfantry11,800
LeeCommander—
In this plan59,000

What the sources report

USAConfederacy
Strength, this plan107,90759,000
Losses, this plan11,0001,500

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 205, “Cold Harbor”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
9 hours
Winner
the defender
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Prepared defense
Front width
9.6 km (attacker), 11.2 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
USAattacker107,90711,00012,976—Frontal attack; Repulse; Stalemate
Confederacydefender59,0001,500——Defensive plan; Stalemate; 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

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.