Strategic Importance of Corinth

Strategic Importance of Corinth. . With the outbreak of the Civil War, the NE Miss. Village of Corinth assumed a strategic value surpassing all but a few Southern cities. Here the South’s two longest railroads met. The junction of the Memphis and Charleston (the South’s only E-W line) and the Mobile and Ohio (a major N-S artery) gave Corinth the sobriquet “Crossroads of the Confederacy”. Federals launched an offensive in the west in Feb. 1862, with the capture of Fts. Henry and Donelson up the Tenn. R. After the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, victorious Union armies under Maj. Gen. 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, “Richmond and Corinth are now the great strategical points of war, and our success at these points should be insured at all hazards”. Conf. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard wired Richmond from his post at Corinth: “Can we not be reinforced? If defeated we lose the Miss. Valley and probably our cause…” Beauregard was reinforced, but he could not hold Corinth, and the town was evacuated on May 30, 1862. In Oct. 1862, Conf. forces under Maj. Gens. Earl Van Dorn and Sterling Price attempted to re-take Corinth, then garrisoned by Fed. Troops under Maj. Gen. W.S. Rosecrans. At the end of three day’s 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, 7 Corinth now safely in Union hands, two avenues of conquest were open to Fed. Armies: one led to Vicksburg and control of the Miss. R. and one led ultimately to Atlanta.