Battle of Iuka The Battle of Iuka was fought on September 19 , 1862 , in Iuka , Mississippi , during the American Civil War . In the opening battle of the Iuka - Corinth Campaign , Union Maj . Gen . William S . Rosecrans stopped the advance of the army of Confederate Maj . Gen . Sterling Price . Maj . Gen . Ulysses S . Grant brought two armies to confront Price in a double envelopment : Rosecrans ' s Army of the Mississippi , approaching Iuka from the southwest , and three divisions of his own Army of the Tennessee under Maj . Gen . Edward O . C . Ord , approaching from the northwest . Although Grant and Ord planned to attack in conjunction with Rosecrans when they heard the sound of battle , an acoustic shadow suppressed the sound and prevented them from realizing that the battle had begun . After an afternoon of fighting , entirely by Rosecrans ' s men , the Confederates withdrew from Iuka on a road that had not been blocked by the Union army , marching to rendezvous with Confederate Maj . Gen . Earl Van Dorn , with whom they would soon fight the Second Battle of Corinth against Rosecrans . Background . After the Siege of Corinth in May 1862 , Maj . Gen . Henry W . Halleck was promoted to be general in chief of the Union Army and Maj . Gen . Ulysses S . Grant replaced him in command at Corinth , Mississippi . This command was smaller than Halleck ' s , however , because the Army of the Ohio under Maj . Gen . Don Carlos Buell now operated as a separate command , leaving Grant command of only his own Army of the Tennessee and Maj . Gen . William S . Rosecrans ' s Army of the Mississippi , together about 100 , 000 men . Since the Confederates had evacuated Corinth that summer , Grant ' s forces had been engaged in protecting supply lines in western Tennessee and northern Mississippi , with Maj . Gen . William T . Sherman ' s division in Memphis , Maj . Gen . Edward O . C . Ord ' s division guarding the Union supply battle at Corinth , and Rosecrans ' s army holding the railroad from Corinth east to Iuka . As Confederate General Braxton Bragg moved north from Tennessee into Kentucky in September 1862 , Buell pursued him from Nashville . The Confederates needed to prevent Buell from being reinforced by Grant ' s command . Confederate Maj . Gen . Sterling Price had been ordered by Bragg to move his Army of the West from Tupelo toward Nashville , Tennessee , in conjunction with Bragg ' s Kentucky offensive . On September 13 , his army reached the town of Iuka in northeastern Mississippi , about 20 miles east of Corinth . It was a small Union supply depot , the easternmost outpost that Grant had established on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad . Price ' s cavalry skirmished with pickets posted by the small Union garrison stationed there . On September 14 , before dawn , the Union commander , Col . Robert C . Murphy of the 8th Wisconsin Infantry , set fire to the supplies of the depot and marched his 2 , 000 - man brigade back to Corinth . The Confederates dashed in and doused the flames , reaping a large collection of valuable supplies . Rosecrans relieved Murphy and ordered him to be court - martialed . Price ' s army settled in Iuka and awaited the arrival of Maj . Gen . Earl Van Dorn ' s Army of West Tennessee , approximately 7 , 000 men . The two generals intended to unite and attack Grant ' s lines of communication in western Tennessee , which would prevent Buell ' s reinforcement if Grant reacted the way they expected , or might allow them to follow Bragg and support his Northern invasion if Grant acted more passively . Grant did not wait to be attacked , approving a plan to converge on Price with two columns before Van Dorn , four days march to the southwest , could reinforce him . Grant sent Ord with three Army of the Tennessee divisions ( about 8 , 000 men ) along the Memphis and Charleston Railroad to move to Burnsville , take the roads to the north of the railroad and move upon Iuka from the northwest . He also ordered Rosecrans ' s army on a coordinated move along the Mobile and Ohio Railroad that would bring two divisions ( 9 , 000 men ) swinging into Iuka from the southwest , closing the escape route for Price ' s army , while the remainder of that army protected Corinth against any threat from Van Dorn . The relatively complex plan for the two - pronged assault was actually Rosecrans ' s , who had previously been stationed in Iuka and felt familiar with the area . Grant moved with Ord ' s headquarters and had little tactical control over Rosecrans during the battle . Opposing forces . Confederate . Price ' s Confederate Army of the West engaged at Iuka amounted to 3 , 179 men . It was organized as follows : Union . Rosecrans ' s Union Army of the Mississippi fielded approximately 4 , 500 men , organized as follows : Edward Ord ' s two divisions did not participate in the main fighting at Iuka . Battle . Ord advanced toward Iuka on the night of September 18 and skirmishing ensued between his reconnaissance patrol and Confederate pickets , about six miles ( 10 km ) from Iuka , before nightfall . Rosecrans was late , having farther to march over roads mired in mud ; furthermore , one of his divisions took a wrong turn and had to countermarch to the correct road . On the night of September 18 , he notified Grant that he was 20 miles away , but planned to start marching again at 4 : 30 a . m . and should reach Iuka by midafternoon on September 19 . Considering this delay , Grant ordered Ord to move within 4 miles of the town , but to await the sound of fighting between Rosecrans and Price before engaging the Confederates . Ord demanded that the Confederates surrender , but Price refused . Price received dispatches from Van Dorn suggesting that their two armies rendezvous at Rienzi for attacks on the Union Army forces in the area , so Price ordered his men to prepare for a march the next day . Rosecrans ' s army marched early on September 19 , but instead of using two roads as originally planned — the Jacinto and Fulton Roads , approaching Iuka from the southwest and southeast — it followed only the Jacinto Road . Rosecrans was concerned that if he used both roads , the halves of his divided force could not realistically support each other if the Confederates attacked . Rosecrans was within two miles ( 3 km ) of the town on September 19 , pushing back Confederate pickets , when his lead element , Sanborn ' s brigade , was struck suddenly by Little ' s Confederate division at 4 : 30 p . m . , on the Mill Road , near the forks of the Jacinto Road and the crossroads leading from it to Fulton ( sometimes referred to as the Bay Springs Road ) . Hamilton deployed his force to the best advantage , his artillery being posted on the only suitable ground . Col . Mizner with a battalion of the 3rd Michigan Cavalry was sent out on the right and the 10th Iowa Infantry and a section of the 11th Ohio Battery formed the left . Hébert ' s brigade ( five infantry regiments , supported by cavalry ) moved forward on the Ohio battery around 5 : 15 p . m . , and although met by a volley from the entire Federal line at , it succeeded in reaching the battery before being repulsed twice . On the third attempt the Confederates drove off the gunners and compelled the 48th Indiana to fall back upon the 4th Minnesota . ( The 11th Ohio lost 46 of their 54 gunners and three of their four officers . Although the Confederates had captured all six guns of the battery , they were unable to take advantage of them , because all of the horses had been killed in the fighting . ) At this time Stanley ' s division was brought into the action . The 11th Missouri was placed to the right and rear of the 5th Iowa , where it repulsed a last desperate attack of two Mississippi brigades . Fighting , which Price later stated he had " never seen surpassed , " continued until after dark . A fresh north wind , blowing from Ord ' s position in the direction of Iuka , caused an acoustic shadow that prevented the sound of the guns from reaching him , and he and Grant knew nothing of the engagement until after it was over . Ord ' s troops stood idly while the fighting raged only a few miles away . Aftermath . During the night both Rosecrans and Ord deployed their forces in the expectation of a renewal of the engagement at daylight , but the Confederate forces had withdrawn . Price had been planning this move since September 18 and Rosecrans ' s attack merely delayed his departure . The Confederates used the Fulton Road , which the Union army had not blocked , protecting its rear with a heavy rearguard and meeting up with Van Dorn ' s army in Ripley five days later . The Confederates combined with Van Dorn for the Second Battle of Corinth , October 3 – 4 . Stanley shelled the town , driving out a number of stragglers . He and Rosecrans ' s cavalry pushed on in pursuit of Price for 15 miles , but owing to the exhausted condition of his troops , his column was outrun and he gave up the pursuit . The Union casualties at Iuka were 790 ( 144 killed , 598 wounded , 40 captured or missing ) ; the Confederates lost 1 , 516 ( 263 killed , 692 wounded , 561 captured or missing ) . The most senior casualty was Confederate general Little , who was struck in the eye by a bullet while accompanying Price . Among the ordnance stores abandoned by the Confederates were 1 , 629 stand of arms , a large stock of quartermaster and commissary stores , and 13 , 000 rounds of ammunition . Grant had partially accomplished his objective — Price was not able to link up with Bragg in Kentucky , but Rosecrans had not been able to destroy the Confederate army or prevent it from linking up with Van Dorn and threatening the critical railroad junction at Corinth . The Battle of Iuka marked the beginning of a long professional enmity between Rosecrans and Grant . The Northern press gave accounts very favorable to Rosecrans at Grant ' s expense . Some rumors circulated that the reason Ord ' s column did not attack in conjunction with Rosecrans was not that the battle was inaudible , but that Grant was drunk and incompetent . Grant ' s first report of the battle was highly complimentary to Rosecrans , but his second , written after Rosecrans had published his own report , took a markedly negative turn . His third statement was in his " Personal Memoir " , where he wrote " I was disappointed at the result of the battle of Iuka — but I had so high an opinion of General Rosecrans but I found no fault at the time . "