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Encounter Battle

Encounter battles emerge unexpectedly when opposing forces meet while manoeuvring. This tag highlights engagements driven by rapid decision-making, local initiative, and the ability to stabilise or exploit fleeting opportunities.

Jeanne d'Arc at the Tourelles, Lenepveu

📝🔒 Field Note: Siege of Orléans, France, May 1429 —battle for the Tourelles

October 2024, Orléans, south side of the Loire River. I am exploring the Hundred Years War battle locations around the city of Orléans. On this site on 7 May 1429, a French Army led by Count John Dunois, ‘The Bastard of Orléans’, and Captain La Hire, and inspired by Jeanne d’Arc, a 17-year old French peasant girl from Domremy, defeated a strong English force defending the ‘Tourelles’ fortress on the southern bank of the Loire River. The Tourelles controlled access across the Pont bridge into the French-held city of Orleans.

Opdycke's Tigers at Franklin, by Don Troiani

⚔️ Battle of Franklin, Tennessee,
30 November 1864

On the evening of 30 November 1864, Gen. John Bell Hood hurled his Army of Tennessee against entrenched Union forces at Franklin, Tennessee. Five hours of brutal fighting cost the Confederacy thousands of casualties and some of its finest generals. This battlefield study examines the strategy, terrain, and leadership decisions that made Franklin a decisive prelude to the Battle of Nashville.

⚔️🔒Battle of Mars-la-Tour, France, 16 August 1870

Mars-la-Tour was fought for a single operational prize: the road to Verdun. After the frontier defeats of early August 1870, Marshal Bazaine sought to withdraw the French Army of the Rhine from Metz toward Verdun to reestablish contact with the French field armies.

German reconnaissance and aggressive marching collided with this movement near Mars-la-Tour and Vionville, producing a meeting engagement in which a relatively small Prussian force fixed a much larger French army in place.

Don Troiani's painting 'The Battle of Bushy Run'

⚔️ Battle of Bushy Run, Pennsylvania,
05-06 August 1763

The Battle of Bushy Run, fought on August 5-6, 1763, was a major engagement during Pontiac’s War, a widespread Native American uprising against British postwar policies in the Great Lakes region following the French and Indian War. The war was named after Pontiac, an Ottawa chief who led a coalition of tribes dissatisfied with British policies and expansion into their territories.

Screenshot from Band of Brothers Episode 2 'Day of Days' as LT Winters and Easy Company assault the German battery position

⚔️ D-Day: Brecourt Manor assault, Easy Company, 506th PIR,
6 June 1944

Here on 6 June 1944, Lieutenant Richard ‘Dick’ Winters, acting company commander for Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, led a force of 23 paratroopers in a successful assault on a German force that outnumbered them more than 5 to 1.

Easy Company’s action that day was depicted in the Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks series ‘Band of Brothers’ Episode 2 ‘Day of Days’.

title slide

⚔️ Battle of Patay, France,
18 June 1429

In the English-speaking world, the Battle of Agincourt in October 1415 is legendary. But there was a lesser-known battle a few years later where the outcome was reversed. A combat-experienced French army, inspired by Jeanne d’Arc, the Maid of Orleans, launched a lightning campaign that overwhelmed multiple English strongholds before wiping out an entire English army in open combat at the Battle of Patay on 18 June 1429. Mark Twain even wrote about this battle!

Medieval depiction of the Battle of Agincourt

⚔️ Battle of Agincourt, France,
25 October 1415

The Battle of Agincourt is one of the most famous battles in history. A small English force is trapped by a much larger French force but prevails against the odds. Shakespeare wrote about it and Hollywood continues to make movies about it. The battle reinforced the legend of the sturdy English longbowmen, equipped with the famous longbow, wreaking havoc on waves of heavily armoured French cavalry. So many of the French nobles were killed at Agincourt, it took years to recover.

'The Battle of Cowpens' by Don Troiani

⚔️ Battle of Cowpens, South Carolina,
17 January 1781

The Battle of Cowpens, South Carolina, was a relatively small engagement in the American Revolutionary War, but had outsized impact on the trajectory of the war. The American commander, Brigadier-General Dan Morgan, also employed tactical innovations that were adopted for future campaigns.