On the morning of October 4, 1862, Confederate forces under Major General Earl Van Dorn launched a massive assault on Major General William Rosecrans's Union garrison in an effort to retake Corinth's critical railroad junction. For a brief moment, southern troops seized the railroad cross-over, pushing past the railway depot and Tishomingo Hotel, but Rosecrans's Federals soon rallied to repel them. Initially driven south of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, Illinois troops hastily reformed to spearhead the Union counterattack. Confederate brigade commander Colonel William Moore was shot and killed in front of the depot, as the Union charge hurled the Southerners back into the town square. Thousands of Union troops soon joined the counterattack, and overwhelmed by massive Federal reserves, the Confederates were caught in a deadly crossfire. A Confederate staff officer reported, "Our lines melted under their fire like snow in thaw." By early afternoon, Van Dorn's army was in full retreat. For the numbers engaged, the battle was one of the Civil War's bitterest fights: Union losses totaled 2,359 and Confederate losses 4,838.

Photo: Bernard Fisher

Photo: Bernard Fisher