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Schematic plan · American Civil War

Second Battle of Petersburg

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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 wingReserveHorseHorse01 km2 kmN

USA (US Army of the James, 63,797 men under Butler) attacked Confederacy (Cs Petersburg Garrisson (+), 41,499 men under Beauregard) in Virginia. The CAA Database of Battles records 41.5 hours of fighting on a front of 4 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that Confederacy held. Losses: USA 8,150 (13%), Confederacy 4,752 (11%).

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

Butler

UnitArmMen
USA left wingInfantry15,311
USA centreInfantry20,415
USA right wingInfantry15,311
USA reserveInfantry12,759
ButlerCommander—
In this plan63,796

Confederacy

Beauregard

UnitArmMen
Confederacy left wingInfantry9,570
Confederacy centreInfantry12,760
Confederacy right wingInfantry9,570
Confederacy reserveInfantry7,975
Confederacy cavalry of the leftCavalry812
Confederacy cavalry of the rightCavalry812
BeauregardCommander—
In this plan41,499

What the sources report

USAConfederacy
Strength, this plan63,79741,499
Losses, this plan8,1504,752

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 209, “Petersburg”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
41.5 hours
Winner
the defender
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Fortified defense
Front width
4 km (attacker), 4 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
USAattacker63,7978,150——Frontal attack; Repulse; Stalemate
Confederacydefender41,4994,7521,624—Defensive plan; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages technology +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.