Schematic plan · Monmouth's Rebellion

Battle of Sedgemoor

6 July 1685
England
Victory for England

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.

English Rebels (Eng Reb Army, 4,000 men under Monmouth) attacked England (Eng Army, 3,000 men under Feversham) in England. The CAA Database of Battles records 2 hours of fighting on a front of 0.8 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that England held. Losses: English Rebels 1,500 (38%), England 300 (10%).

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

English Rebels

Monmouth

Unit	Arm	Men
English Rebels left wing	Infantry	754
English Rebels centre	Infantry	1,005
English Rebels right wing	Infantry	754
English Rebels reserve	Infantry	628
English Rebels cavalry of the left	Cavalry	400
English Rebels cavalry of the right	Cavalry	400
English Rebels artillery (4 guns)	Artillery	60
Monmouth	Commander	—
In this plan		4,001

England

Feversham

Unit	Arm	Men
England left wing	Infantry	540
England centre	Infantry	720
England right wing	Infantry	540
England reserve	Infantry	450
England cavalry of the left	Cavalry	255
England cavalry of the right	Cavalry	255
England artillery (16 guns)	Artillery	240
Feversham	Commander	—
In this plan		3,000

What the sources report

	English Rebels	England
Strength, this plan	4,000	3,000
Losses, this plan	1,500	300

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 39, “Sedgemoor”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 2 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Light precipitation, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 0.8 km (attacker), 1.2 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
English Rebelsattacker	4,000	1,500	800	4	Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew with heavy losses
Englanddefender	3,000	300	510	16	Defensive/offensive plan; Double envelopment; Breakthrough; Pursued

Attacker’s advantages initiative +1 · surprise +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. 39 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Sedgemoor · 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.