Siege of Corinth

Siege of Corinth
Part of the American Civil War
"Crossroads of the Confederacy"
Date April 29, 1862 (1862-04-29) – May 30, 1862 (1862-05-30) Location Corinth, Mississippi 34°56′02″N 88°31′19″W / 34.934°N 88.522°W / 34.934; -88.522Coordinates: 34°56′02″N 88°31′19″W / 34.934°N 88.522°W / 34.934; -88.522 Result Union victory
Belligerents
United States (Union)	CSA (Confederacy)
Commanders and leaders
Henry Halleck Ulysses S. Grant George H. Thomas Don Carlos Buell John Pope	P. G. T. Beauregard Braxton Bragg Earl Van Dorn
Units involved
Army of the Tennessee Army of the Ohio Army of the Mississippi	Army of Tennessee Army of the West
Strength
120,000	65,000
Casualties and losses
1,000	1,000

Henry Halleck

P. G. T. Beauregard

The Siege of Corinth (also known as the First Battle of Corinth) was an American Civil War engagement lasting from April 29 to May 30, 1862, in Corinth, Mississippi. A collection of Union forces under the overall command of Major General Henry Halleck engaged in a month-long siege of the city, whose Confederate occupants were commanded by General P.G.T. Beauregard. The siege resulted in the capture of the town by Federal forces.

The town was a strategic point at the junction of two vital railroad lines, the Mobile and Ohio Railroad and the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. The other importance to the strategic reasoning to capture Corinth lay in the railways of the Mobile and Ohio penetrating to the Gulf of Mexico and the Deep South. Former Confederate Secretary of War LeRoy Pope Walker called this intersection "the vertebrae of the Confederacy". General Halleck argued: "Richmond and Corinth are now the great strategic points of the war, and our success at these points should be insured at all hazards". Another reason for the town's importance was that, if captured by Union forces, it would threaten the security of Chattanooga and render the Southern control of the track west of the East Tennessee bastion meaningless, though little thought would be put into the strategic importance to this town as Van Dorn and Price included the propriety to evacuating Corinth. Beauregard and the rest of his lieutenants agreed and preparations were made on May 25 to evacuate the city.

The siege ended when the Confederates withdrew. This effectively cut the prospect of Confederate attempts to regain western Tennessee. The Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant took control and made it the base for Grant's operations to seize control of the Mississippi River Valley, and especially the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Grant later within his memoirs would recall the importance Corinth held in the cause to a Union victory in the region: "Corinth was a valuable strategic point for the enemy to hold, and consequently a valuable one for us to possess ourselves of". General C. S. Hamilton would later recount that the importance of Corinth was summed up as such: "The Confederate armies had been driven from the Ohio River, almost out of the States of Tennessee and Kentucky a steadying back for a distance of 200 miles Federal occupation reaching the Gulf States where chivalrous foes had been sure Yankee would never set foot". Sherman too would later write of the importance that Corinth held after the Second Battle of Corinth was concluded: "In Memphis I could see its effects upon the citizens, and they openly admitted that their cause had sustained a death-blow".

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