In late summer 1862, Confederate armies were on the march everywhere. The most notable advance, that of the Army of Northern Virginia, ended in stinging defeat along the banks of Antietam Creek, Maryland, in mid-September. Southern hopes, therefore, turned to the West.

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In the western theater, General Braxton Bragg prepared to take his Army of Tennessee north into Kentucky. He hoped to exploit a division in the Union command–Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell commanded eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant the western end of both states–and defeat Buell before Grant could reinforce him.

The ambitious operations in the West eventually would involve all four armies in Bragg’s district. Major General Kirby Smith’s command at Knoxville was to join Bragg in Kentucky, while Maj. Gen. Sterling Price’s Army of the West and Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn’s Army of the Mississippi kept Grant busy in northern Mississippi.

When he heard that Grant was reinforcing Buell, Price launched an attack toward Iuka, Miss., but two Union columns, one led by Grant himself, almost trapped his army on September 19. Five days later, Price decided to join Van Dorn so they could attack Grant in force.

With Union interest concentrated chiefly on Bragg’s invasion of Kentucky, Grant’s command was scattered about western Tennessee and northern Mississippi in several garrisons. Impetuous and aggressive (he was a former Indian fighter), Van Dorn evaluated potential objectives before deciding to attack the strongest, the one at Corinth, Miss. Two strategic railroads, the Mobile & Ohio and the Memphis & Charleston, linked up there, and control of the rails was, as always, a paramount concern in the war.

After the Battle of Iuka, Grant transferred his headquarters to Jackson, Tenn., leaving Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans in command at Corinth. Both Rosecrans and Van Dorn had graduated from West Point in the class of 1842, Rosecrans near the top of the class and Van Dorn near the bottom. Rosecrans was an army engineer for 10 years before resigning his commission to go to work for a railroad. In 1861, he re-entered the army as a colonel of engineers under his friend, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, in West Virginia. The army transferred him west, and when Maj. Gen. John Pope conversely went east, Rosecrans became commander of the Army of the Mississippi.

Rosecrans missed the Mexican War, whereas Van Dorn was in the thick of the fighting, being brevetted twice for bravery. He had risen to the rank of major (in the elite 2nd U.S. Cavalry) when the Civil War broke out. Originally assigned to the East at the request of General Joseph E. Johnston, his prewar regimental commander, Van Dorn was transferred west after being in almost constant conflict with Confederate authorities over his rank and command. He later commanded the Army of the West at the Battle of Pea Ridge, and the District of Mississippi at Vicksburg during the summer of 1862.

Van Dorn knew that Rosecrans had 15,000 troops at Corinth, with another 8,000 at the nearby garrisons at Iuka, Burnsville, Rienzi, Danville and Chewalla. If Van Dorn moved quickly, he could strike before Rosecrans consolidated his forces. With 22,000 men, he would have a numerical advantage of about 3-to-2.

To be successful, Van Dorn had to achieve surprise. At first, he did. Without Rosecrans being aware of it, he moved his army from LaGrange to Ripley, where Price joined him on the 28th. The combined army consisted of divisions under Maj. Gen. Mansfield Lovell, Brig. Gen. Dabney Maury and Brig. Gen. Louis Hébert.

On the 29th, Van Dorn’s army marched north toward Pocahontas, thereby threatening the Union garrison at Bolivar. The effort to conceal his objective failed, however, as the canny Grant saw through the feint. On October 1, Grant ordered Rosecrans to concentrate his forces, and the next day the Union units began marching toward Corinth.

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