1862 was a very rough year for the people who resided in and around Corinth, Mississippi as there were two major Civil War battles that were fought in their backyard. The Siege of Corinth took place from April 29th through May 30th. The Second Battle of Corinth was fought on October 3rd and 4th. 
Corinth had a very strategic location for the Confederacy since it was situated where the Memphis and Charleston Railroad and the Mobile and Ohio Railroad intersected.


After the Union victory at Shiloh, the Armies of the Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi, led by Major General Henry Halleck, began their advance on Corinth to overtake this railroad junction; but due to Halleck being overcautious the Union Army was moving at a snail crawl.

What Halleck didn’t realize was that his forces outnumbered those of General Pierre G. T. Beauregard by more than double. However, the Confederate forces did understand how disadvantaged they were and in addition, diseases including the likes of typhoid and dysentery were responsible for Confederate casualties that approached the number of casualties at Shiloh.
Beauregard used subterfuge to sneak his army out of Corinth. First, Beauregard provided his men with rations for a few days and informed them that they should ready to attack the Union afterwards.  Beauregard knew that he probably had spies in the ranks who would cross into enemy lines to inform the Union Army about details – which is exactly what occurred. Beauregard then started to remove his men from Corinth – mostly by railroad.

In addition, Confederate forces also set up fake armaments within their defensive armaments, and they kept campfires burning to make it appear that the troops were still there.

The siege ended on May 30th with the withdrawal of Confederate forces. General Ulysses Grant then made Corinth his home operation base for the Union Armies efforts to take control over the Mississippi River Valley, with Grant’s eye set on overtaking the fortress of the city of Vicksburg.
On September 28th, the Confederate Army moved towards retaking Corinth with the goal to then march into Middle Tennessee. The Confederate forces numbered more than 22,000 men consisting of Major General Sterling Price with his Army of the West and the Army of West Tennessee under Major General Earl Van Dorn. Since Van Dorn was the more senior officer, he was in command of all the forces. Van Dorn was aware that the combined Confederate forces were superior in number to the 15,000 Union troops that were encamped in Corinth under the command of Major General William Rosecrans provided that Van Dorn could stealthily attack Corinth because Van Dornn also knew that Rosecrans could quickly summons an additional 8,000 men from different garrisons that were nearby.

On September 29th, Van Dorn began to move to the north of Corinth towards a Union garrison at Bolivar in order to conceal his real, but Major General Ulysses S. Grant saw through this ruse and ordered Rosecrans to combine all 23,000 troops at Corinth.  

Van Dorn had received information that was sent from a Confederate spy named Amelia Burton that the weakest portion of the Union defense lied to the northwest of Corinth. But Van Dorn didn’t know that this message had been intercepted by the Union and then delivered to Van Dorn. In response to this message, Rosecrans strengthened that area of the town.

On October 3rd the battle began with Van Dorn’s 22,000 Confederate Army facing the approximately 23,000 Union troops under the command of Rosecrans. The two armies battled over two days and in the end, the Union Army had defeated the Confederate forces at Conrinth for the second time in 1862. Union casualties numbered around 2500, while the Confederacy lost over 4200 men.