Schematic plan · American Revolution

Battle of Camden

16 August 1780
South Carolina
Victory for Great Britain

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.

Great Britain (Br Army, 2,100 men under Cornwallis) attacked USA (Am Army, 3,050 men under Gates) in South Carolina. The CAA Database of Battles records 8.8 hours of fighting on a front of 1.6 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Great Britain won. Losses: Great Britain 324 (15%), USA 1,050 (34%).

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

Great Britain

Cornwallis

Unit	Arm	Men
Great Britain left wing	Infantry	490
Great Britain centre	Infantry	653
Great Britain right wing	Infantry	490
Great Britain reserve	Infantry	408
Great Britain artillery (4 guns)	Artillery	60
Cornwallis	Commander	—
In this plan		2,101

USA

Gates

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	700
USA centre	Infantry	933
USA right wing	Infantry	700
USA reserve	Infantry	583
USA artillery (9 guns)	Artillery	135
Gates	Commander	—
In this plan		3,051

What the sources report

	Great Britain	USA
Strength, this plan	2,100	3,050
Losses, this plan	324	1,050

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 91, “Camden”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 8.8 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 1.6 km (attacker), 1.6 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Great Britainattacker	2,100	324	0	4	Frontal attack; Breakthrough; Pursued
USAdefender	3,050	1,050	0	9	Defensive plan; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · training +1 · initiative +1 · combat effectiveness +2

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. 91 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Camden · 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.