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Second Battle of Corinth 1862

Second Battle of Corinth: Confederate soldiers killed during the Battle of Corinth, Mississippi, October 1862
Image: George Washington Armstead (1835-1912), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.

Key facts

Date3 October 1862 – 4 October 1862Wikidata
Year1862Wikidata P580 (start time)
Era19th century (1800–1913)derived from year
LocationUnited StatesNatural Earth (modern borders)
ContinentNorth AmericaNatural Earth
War / conflictAmerican Civil WarWikidata P361
ParticipantsArmy of West Tennessee, Army of the MississippiWikidata P710
Coordinates34.9710, -88.5217Wikidata P625

About the battle

The Second Battle of Corinth (which, in the context of the American Civil War, is usually referred to as the Battle of Corinth, to differentiate it from the siege of Corinth earlier the same year) was fought October 3–4, 1862, in Corinth, Mississippi. For the second time in the Iuka–Corinth Campaign, Union Major General William S. Rosecrans defeated a Confederate army, this time one under Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn.

After the Battle of Iuka, Maj. Gen. Sterling Price marched his army to meet with Van Dorn's. The combined force, known as the Army of West Tennessee, was put under the command of the more senior Van Dorn. The army moved in the direction of Corinth, a critical rail junction in northern Mississippi, hoping to disrupt Union lines of communications and then sweep into Middle Tennessee. The fighting began on October 3 as the Confederates pushed the Union Army from the rifle pits originally constructed by the Confederates for the siege of Corinth. The Confederates exploited a gap in the Union line and continued to press the Union troops until they fell back to an inner line of fortifications.

On the second day of battle, the Confederates moved forward to meet heavy Union artillery fire, storming Battery Powell and Battery Robinett, where desperate hand-to-hand fighting occurred.

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Second Battle of Corinth (revision 1370736073), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.

Location

34.9710, -88.5217 · United States

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Nearby battles

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Further reading