In late spring and early summer of 1862, the fighting in northern Mississippi centered on the small town of Booneville. Besides being a station on the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, Booneville became, after the Confederate withdrawal from Corinth, the advance outpost of the Union army in the Magnolia State. It was there that 'Little Phil' Sheridan won his brigadier's star.

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On May 27, 1862, Captain Philip Sheridan's fortunes took a sudden leap forward. For five months he had toiled as a supply officer in one rear-echelon capacity or another. In one eventful day he moved from being an inconspicuous staff officer to commanding his own regiment. It was the beginning of a legendary career.

When the U.S. War Department promoted Colonel Gordon Granger to brigadier general, the 2nd Michigan Cavalry needed a new commanding officer. Governor Austin Blair of Michigan, hoping to avoid having to make the choice himself, wanted the new commander to be a professional soldier, as Granger was. Blair was traveling with the Union armies besieging Corinth, and learned about Sheridan from Captain Russell A. Alger and Lieutenant Frank Walbridge, a regimental quartermaster who knew Sheridan well.

On the 27th, Alger and Walbridge rode all night to hand-deliver a telegram to Sheridan issued by the Michigan adjutant general: 'Captain Philip H. Sheridan is hereby appointed Colonel of the Second Regiment Michigan Cavalry to rank from this date.' Sheridan had been seeking just such a combat position for several months, but his commander, Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck, found him more valuable as a supply officer. The Ohio-bred Sheridan was with the army at that time only because he had persuaded Halleck's assistant adjutant general — an old friend — to order him to join the army in the field near Shiloh, Tenn. Halleck, in fact, thought Sheridan was still in Illinois buying horses.

With the telegram in hand, Sheridan eagerly went to see his commanding general. War Department policy prohibited Regular Army officers from commanding volunteer units without Department approval, because Regulars were believed to be too strict for volunteer soldiers to abide. Citing that policy, Halleck refused to authorize Sheridan's promotion.

The dejected Sheridan returned to his quarters with the news. Alger and Walbridge convinced him to try again. 'Enlarging on my desire for active service with troops, and urging the utter lack of such opportunity where I was, I pleaded my cause until General Halleck finally resolved to take the responsibility of letting me go without consulting the War Department,' Sheridan wrote in his memoirs. When Sheridan thanked him, the general told him to hurry to join the 2nd Michigan because the regiment was about to go on a raid behind the Confederate lines.

During the six weeks since the Battle of Shiloh, three Union armies had closed in on the strategic rail center of Corinth, Miss. Major General John Pope, the commander of the Army of the Mississippi on the Union left, expected the Confederates to withdraw at any time. Granger, now commanding Pope's cavalry division, ordered Colonel Washington Elliott to take his 2nd Cavalry Brigade around Corinth to strike the Mobile & Ohio Railroad about 22 miles below Corinth at Booneville.

Sheridan arrived at the 2nd Michigan Cavalry's bivouac near Farmington around 8 p.m. He immediately summoned the regiment's officers to introduce himself. Between midnight and 1 o'clock, the bugles signaled that it was time to ride. Sheridan rode to war wearing an infantry captain's uniform with a pair of 'well-worn' colonel's eagles given him by Granger.

The 2nd Cavalry Brigade consisted of the 2nd Iowa and the 2nd Michigan. With Elliott commanding the brigade, Lt. Col. Edward Hatch commanded his old regiment.

The hilly countryside around Corinth was not well-suited to cavalry operations. Accordingly, the cavalry found itself restricted to roads or railroad tracks. Elliott's brigade rode southeast through very rough country toward Yellow Creek. Crossing at the main ford, the brigade reached the Memphis & Charleston Railroad two miles west of Iuka late the next evening.

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