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The Second Battle of Corinth (which, in the context of the American Civil War, is usually referred to as the Battle of Corinth, to differentiate it from the Siege of Corinth earlier the same year) 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, under the command of the more senior Van Dorn, 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 Federal 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. After a Federal counterattack recaptured Battery Powell, Van Dorn ordered a general retreat. Rosecrans did not pursue immediately and the Confederates escaped destruction. ==Background== As Confederate General Braxton Bragg moved north from Tennessee into Kentucky in September 1862, Union Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell pursued him from Nashville with his Army of the Ohio. Confederate forces under Van Dorn and Price in northern Mississippi were expected to advance into Middle Tennessee to support Bragg's effort, but the Confederates also needed to prevent Buell from being reinforced by Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Tennessee. Since the conclusion of the Siege of Corinth that summer, Grant's army had been engaged in protecting supply lines in western Tennessee and northern Mississippi. At the Battle of Iuka on September 19, Maj. Gen. Sterling Price's Confederate Army of the West was defeated by forces under Grant's overall command, but tactically under Rosecrans, the commander of the Army of the Mississippi. (Grant's second column approaching Iuka, commanded by Maj. Gen. Edward Ord, did not participate in the battle as planned. An acoustic shadow apparently prevented Grant and Ord from hearing the sounds of the battle starting.) Price had hoped to combine his small army with Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn's Army of West Tennessee and disrupt Grant's communications, but Rosecrans struck first, causing Price to retreat from Iuka. Rosecrans's pursuit of Price was ineffectual.〔Korn, pp. 34–37; Kennedy, p. 129; Welcher, pp. 553–59; Woodworth, pp. 217–24; Eicher, p. 374.〕 After Iuka, Grant established his headquarters at Jackson, Tennessee, a central location to communicate with his commands at Corinth and Memphis. Rosecrans returned to Corinth. Ord's three divisions of Grant's Army of the Tennessee moved to Bolivar, Tennessee, northwest of Corinth, to join with Maj. Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut. Thus, Grant's forces in the immediate vicinity consisted of 12,000 men at Bolivar, Rosecrans's 23,000 at Corinth, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's 7,000 at Memphis, and another 6,000 as a general reserve at Jackson.〔Eicher, p. 374; Cozzens, p. 144.〕 Price's army marched to Ripley where it joined Van Dorn on September 28. Van Dorn was the senior officer and took command of the combined force, numbering about 22,000 men. They marched on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad to Pocahontas, Tennessee, on October 1. From this point they had a number of opportunities for further moves and Grant was uncertain about their intentions. When they bivouacked on October 2 at Chewalla, Grant became certain that Corinth was the target. The Confederates hoped to seize Corinth from an unexpected direction, isolating Rosecrans from reinforcements, and then sweep into Middle Tennessee. Grant sent word to Rosecrans to be prepared for an attack, at the same time directing Hurlbut to keep an eye on the enemy and strike him on the flank if a favorable opportunity offered. Despite the warning from Grant, Rosecrans was not convinced that Corinth was necessarily the target of Van Dorn's advance. He believed that the Confederate commander would not be foolhardy enough to attack the fortified town and might well instead choose to strike the Mobile and Ohio railroad and maneuver the Federals out of their position.〔Lamers, pp. 133–35.〕 Along the north and east sides of Corinth, about two miles from the town, was a line of entrenchments, extending from the Chewalla Road on the northwest to the Mobile and Ohio Railroad on the south, that had been constructed by Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard's army before it evacuated the town in May. These lines were too extensive for Rosecrans's 23,000 men to defend, so with the approval of Grant, Rosecrans modified the lines to emphasize the defense of the town and the ammunition magazines near the junction of the two railroads. The inner line of redoubts, closer to the town, called the Halleck Line, was much more substantial. A number of formidable named batteries, guns positioned in strong earthwork defenses, were part of the inner line: Batteries Robinett, Williams, Phillips, Tannrath, and Lothrop, in the area known as College Hill.〔The (Corinth website ) describes Corona College, "established in 1857 by the Rev. L. B. Gaston, was an elegant girls school. It was used as a hospital during 1862–1864 by Confederate and later Union Armies. In January 1864, it was burned when Federal forces abandoned Corinth." Cozzens, p. 22, refers to Corona Female College. "Boosters lauded the college, which stood on a knoll southwest of the railway junction, as 'a magnificent building surrounded by a lofty dome.'"〕 They were connected by breastworks, and during the last four days of September these works had been strengthened, and the trees in the vicinity of the centrally placed Battery Robinett had been felled to form an abatis. Rosecrans's plan was to absorb the expected Confederate advance with a skirmish line at the old Confederate entrenchments and to then meet the bulk of the Confederate attack with his main force along the Halleck Line, about a mile from the center of town. His final stand would be made around the batteries on College Hill. His men were provided with three days' rations and 100 rounds of ammunition. Van Dorn was not aware of the strength of his opponent, who had prudently called in two reinforcing divisions from the Army of the Tennessee to deal with the difficulty of assaulting these prepared positions.〔Cozzens, pp. 145–46; Welcher, p. 554; Kennedy, p. 131.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Second Battle of Corinth」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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