With the outbreak of the Civil War, the northeast Mississippi village of Corinth assumed a strategic value surpassing all but a few Southern cities because the South’s two longest railroads met there. The junction of the Memphis and Charleston, the South’s only east-west line, and the Mobile and Ohio, a major north-south artery, gave Corinth the sobriquet “Crossroads of the Confederacy.” Federals launched an offensive in the West in February 1862 with the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson up the Tennessee River. After the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, victorious Union armies under Major General H.W. Halleck converged on Corinth to begin what would be, in numbers of troops engaged, the greatest siege in the history of the western hemisphere. During the Siege of Corinth, Halleck wired Washington that Richmond and Corinth were the great strategical points of the war and that success at those points should be insured at all hazards. Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard wired Richmond from Corinth asking for reinforcement and warning that defeat would mean the loss of the Mississippi Valley and probably their cause. Beauregard was reinforced, but he could not hold Corinth, and the town was evacuated on May 30, 1862. In October 1862, Confederate forces under Major Generals Earl Van Dorn and Sterling Price attempted to retake Corinth, then garrisoned by Federal troops under Major General W.S. Rosecrans. At the end of three days of fighting, Corinth was secured for the Union. The Battle of Corinth was one of the largest and bloodiest of the western theater. With the results of Shiloh at last consolidated and Corinth safely in Union hands, two avenues of conquest were open to Federal armies: one led to Vicksburg and control of the Mississippi River, and one led ultimately to Atlanta.

Photo: Anonymous

Photo: Anonymous

Photo: Tom Bosse