page_title: Second Battle of Corinth
section_title: October 4
hierarchical_section_title: Second Battle of Corinth / Battle / October 4
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the second day of the Second Battle of Corinth of the American Civil War.
context_page_description: The second Battle of Corinth was fought October 3–4, 1862, in Corinth, Mississippi. For the second time in the Iuka-Corinth Campaign, Union Maj. Gen. William 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 U.S. 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. A brief incursion into the town of Corinth was repulsed.
context_section_description: At 4:30 a.m. on October 4, the Confederates opened up on the Union inner line of entrenchments with a six-gun battery, which kept up its bombardment until after sunrise. When the guns fell silent, the U.S. troops prepared themselves to resist an attack. But the attack was slow in coming. Van Dorn had directed Hébert to begin the engagement at daylight, and the artillery fire was merely preliminary to enable Hébert to get into position for the assault.
  At 7 a.m., Hébert sent word to Van Dorn that he was too ill to lead his division, and Brig. Gen. Martin E. Green was ordered to assume command and advance at once. Nearly two hours more elapsed before Green moved to the attack, with four brigades in echelon, until he occupied a position in the woods north of town. There he formed in line, facing south, and made a charge on Battery Powell with the brigades of Gates and McLain (replacing Martin), while the brigades of Moore (replacing Green) and Colbert attacked Hamilton's line. The assault on the battery was successful, capturing the guns and scattering the troops from Illinois and Iowa. Hamilton repulsed the attack on his position and then sent a portion of his command to the assistance of Davies, who rallied his men, drove the Confederates out of the battery, and recaptured the guns.
  Maury had been engaged sometime before this. As soon as he heard the firing on his left, he knew that Davies and Hamilton would be kept too busy to interfere with his movements, and gave the order for his division to move straight toward the town. His right encountered a stubborn resistance at about 11 a.m. from Battery Robinett, a redan protected by a five-foot ditch, sporting three 20-pounder Parrott rifles commanded by Lt. Henry Robinett. Fierce hand-to-hand combat ensued, and Maury was forced to retire with heavy losses from arguably the hottest action of the two-day battle. Col. William P. Rogers of the 2nd Texas, a Mexican–American War comrade of President Jefferson Davis, was among those killed in the charge. Col. Lawrence Sullivan Ross of the 6th Texas was thrown from his horse and mistakenly reported killed with Rogers.
  Phifer's brigade on the left met with better success, driving back Davies's left flank and entering the town. But their triumph was short-lived, as part of Sullivan's brigade, held as a reserve on Hamilton's left, charged on the Confederates, who were thrown into confusion in the narrow streets, and as they fell back came within range of batteries on both flanks of the Union army, the cross-fire utterly routing them. Cabell's brigade of Maury's division was sent to reinforce the troops that had captured Battery Powell, but before it arrived, Davies and Hamilton had recaptured it, and as Cabell advanced against it, he was met by a murderous fire that caused his men to retreat.
  Meanwhile, Lovell had been skirmishing with the Union left in the vicinity of Battery Phillips, in preparation for a general advance. Before his arrangements were complete he was ordered to send a brigade to Maury's assistance, and soon afterward received orders to place his command so as to cover the retreat of the army. At 4 p.m., reinforcements from Grant under the command of Brig. Gen. James B. McPherson arrived from Jackson. But the battle of Corinth had effectively been over since 1 p.m. and the Confederates were in full retreat.
caption: Battle of Corinth, October 4, 1862
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