Corinth, Mississippi is all about railroads. Transportation – just like with its illustrious namesake in Greece – constitutes Corinth’s raison d’être. Two main rail lines intersected here. One set of rails went east and west – Memphis & Charleston, while the other line oriented itself in a north and south direction – Mobile & Ohio. The two lines made up very important transportation routes linking major parts of the Confederate South together. These railroads, because of the paucity of such roads available to the Confederacy, took on an even greater importance during the American Civil War.
The town went through several phases during the war, first as a Confederate hub and later a Federal stronghold. Finally, as Confederate power waned, a large “contraband” camp became established here before moving to Memphis. Contraband camps housed slaves freed because of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation 1 January1863. The Proclamation freed slaves in all States which were in rebellion against the federal government. Slavery, itself, would have to wait for the passage of the 13th Amendment – 6 December 1865 – for the “peculiar institution” to finally become unconstitutional.
FIRST PHASE – CONFEDERATE HUB and SHILOH
The Hub
Originally founded in 1853 as Cross City when railroad surveyors placed the crossroads of the two lines here even before the rails were complete – the Memphis & Charleston finished in 1857 with the Mobile & Ohio in 1861 just before the war began. By 1861, the town boasted almost 3,000 residents in the now-renamed Corinth. Generals on both sides thought the new rail hub as the second-most important rail hub in the South after only Atlanta. Union Major General Henry Halleck, commander of Federal forces in the Department of the Mississippi in 1862, called Corinth along with Richmond as “the greatest strategic points of the war, and our success at these points should be insured at all hazards.”
The Confederate commander in the West, General Albert Sidney Johnston, the fall of forts Henry and Donelson. Johnston’s originally devised a defensive plan to hold a line in northern Tennessee which soon extended into central Kentucky. After forts Henry and Donelson fell in early 1862 to Major General Ulysses S. Grant, Johnston’s line fell apart. He then used the rail hub at Corinth to concentrate his dispersed troop units. At that point, the Federals split into two armies. Grant’s army was working its way down the Tennessee River while another army under Major General Don Carlos Buell marched through central Tennessee. Buell was ordered by Halleck to concentrate with Grant which then because of the sheer numbers, Johnston could not hope to defeat.
CONCENTRATION
As Timothy Smith’s complete books on Shiloh, Corinth and his biography on Johnston relate, Johnston was hoping with his ability to concentrate faster through his rail connections. He would then sally forth against Grant before Buell could connect or to quote the title of Smith’s biography, Johnston would throw “The Iron Dice of Battle” into play.
Johnston used the month of March 1862 to gather troops from all over the Deep South, from Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas and Missouri. The railroads helped him gather 42,000 men together – the forces from Missouri, some 15,000 still had not arrived by the time of Shiloh – quicker than Buell’s force could march. Originally, Johnston planned to attack Grant on 4 April but bad weather and delays due to inexperience – at this point in the war, both sides fought with troops fresh from civilian life – the battle did not begin until 6 April.
Shiloh
The iron dice rolled, the first day, Johnston, leading from the front, rolled over the Federals initially. But inexperience, troop units mixed together in the confusion of battle and Johnston’s death in the early afternoon led to the survival of Grant’s forces. Replenished at the day’s end by another division of Grant’s own army – lost during the day marching to the west and north of the battlefield – and by the arrival of Buell’s 22,000 men, led to Johnston’s gamble ‘crapping out’. The survivors of the two-day battle escaped to regroup 20 miles to the south in Corinth.
FIRST BATTLE OF CORINTH
Grant’s army was stung as much as the Confederate forces. As a result, they were slow to pursue. In the meantime, Halleck, himself came forward to take command in the field – the only time during the war he would do so. Both sides waited for reinforcements from the former Missouri theater to join the respective armies. For the Confederates, Major General Earl Van Dorn showed up with 12,901 men under his command, the Army of the West bringing the total to 58,451 by 30 April. The Federals brought together the combined forces of the Army of the Ohio (Major General Don Carlos Buell 48,108 men), the Army of the Tennessee (Major General George H. Thomas 50,554 men) and the Army of the Mississippi (Major General John Pope 21,510 men) into a massive, combined army of 120,172.
Problems at the top
Grant became a temporary scapegoat for the reverses suffered on 6 April. He had a history of alcoholism. Drinking was the reason forcing him to resign from the Army in 1854 while stationed at a small fort in northern California. While allowed to resign, his commander did not submit a report for that reason. This gave Grant the chance to escape a court martial. The War Department noted upon his resignation papers, “Nothing stands against his good name.” This made it easier for him to gain a command in the early days of the war.
At the same time, however as Grant’s resignation, Henry Halleck lived, also, in San Franciso, California. He resigned in 1854 from the Regular Army, but because he had become a successful lawyer and land speculator. The military world was a small one on the Californian frontier in the mid-1850s. Halleck surely knew the truth of Grant’s resignation, especially since Grant’s superior in California who led Grant to resigning, Robert C. Buchanan, was stationed in San Francisco before the war. Both Buchanan and Halleck served in the Mexican War and like Grant, all three were West Point graduates. Halleck gained an impression of Grant as he did of other officers who served and resigned during their times in California, men such as William T. Sherman and Joseph Hooker.
AFTER SHILOH
Following Shiloh, Halleck arrived at Pittsburg Landing after the battle and scolded Grant in front of other soldiers for the surprise received on the first day of battle and the condition and order of Grant’s army “without discipline and order” compared to Buell’s which he regarded as in “good condition”. Halleck made Grant his second-in-command, taking him off field command with little to do. “I never saw a man more deficient in the business of organization … brave & able in the field, he has no idea of how to regulate & organize his forces before a battle or to conduct the operations of a campaign” was Halleck’s opinion.
return to bad habits?
Already, Halleck had accused Grant of being problematic. He even suggested Grant “had resumed his former bad habits” after Grant’s victory at Fort Donelson. Federal overall commander, George McClellan, (McClellan also knew Grant from his time in the West) authorized Halleck to replace Grant with Brigadier General C. F. Smith (Smith had been one of Grant’s professors at West Point), one of Grant’s divisional commanders at Henry and Donelson which Halleck proceeded to do. But in telling Grant of his demotion, Halleck made it look like the source had been in Washington and not him. Lincoln had asked for further proof of Grant’s misdeeds to which Halleck, knowing he had no definitive proof, backtracked. The result was Grant’s restoration to command just in time for Shiloh.
Commander takes the Field
As second-in-command, Halleck pushed Grant off the stage as he organized his vast force to push off at the end of April towards Corinth. The march on Corinth took Halleck a month to cover the 22-mile distance. Cautious by nature, Halleck had his troops end each day’s march building new trenches so they would not fall surprise to another Confederate attack like on 6 April. With each trench line completed, the men would advance another mile to start digging anew. By the end of the campaign, Halleck’s men built seven progressive lines which covered almost 40 miles of trenches in total. Grant, later, wrote of the campaign as “a siege from start to finish”. Another brigadier said of the month of May 1862, “My men will never dig another trench for Halleck except to bury him.”
Bad weather, terrain and lack of roads had something to do with the slow pace, but Halleck also constantly fretted to keep his large army marching together to prevent gaps between his armies. He constantly worried about the possibility of potential confederate attacks on his flanks, as well. One of the divisions of Pope’s force reached the village of Farmington only four miles from Corinth by 3 May. Worried about the misalignment caused by the advance, Halleck ordered Pope to withdraw from his advanced positions.
CAUTION REARS ITS HEAD
A minor attack by the Confederates on 7 May against Pope brought on more caution on the part of Halleck. The huge army still crept slowly forward. Confederate commander, General P.G.T. Beauregard had his own political problems – President Jefferson Davis was not on good terms with the Cajun general – but even though obviously badly outnumbered, he tried to launch a counterattack on the oncoming Federals. Failure of his subordinates to move, in this case, one Earl Van Dorn, who would encounter this problem in the future, disrupted those plans of 22 May. Beauregard was also concerned for his flanks, but the main problem was, even as slow as the Federals came on, they reached to within two-three miles of Corinth by mid-May. He realized Halleck would eventually surround him, taking not only the rail hub but his entire army, as well.
End of the long Siege
Beauregard at a meeting with his main commanders on 25 May, he asked for opinions on what options they had left. All agreed, it was time to save the army. Both sides suffered from the weather and lack of good water with 30% or more on both sides suffering from dysentery, malaria and other illnesses. Halleck and Pope both suffered from dysentery while William Sherman was down with malaria. As Halleck waited for his massive siege guns to come up – they only fired one time though those shells convinced Beauregard his solution to withdraw was correct – the Confederate force prepared a series of ruses to camouflage their withdrawal.
ruses used to escape
Logs were used as fake cannons manned by mannequins and scarecrows. Trains ran all night long back and forth out of Corinth. With their arrival, bands would meet them, and men cheer as if reinforcements were coming in. Where they were visible to the Federals, Confederate troops marched into the town, withdrawing out of sight and marching in again. The whole process kept the Federals guessing before it was too late.
On the night of 29-30 May, Corinth was successfully abandoned by Beauregard. Halleck was content to let them go. He was like other soldiers of his time, places needed to be taken. Corinth’s fall, Halleck reported to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, “the result is all I could possibly desire.” To his wife, Halleck wrote he had done it all “with very little loss of life …. I have won the victory without the battle!” But Beauregard’s army did survive to fight many other days.
Aftermath
Soon after the successful withdrawal from Corinth, described by Beauregard to President Jefferson Davis as “equivalent to a brilliant victory”, he found himself out of a job. Davis and other top Confederates considered the loss of the rail crossroads, especially with the loss of the Memphis & Charleston line, the breaking of the “vertebrae of the Confederacy.”
Halleck had several options open to him with the “siege” concluded. Instead of marching after Beauregard, he chose to break up his massive force, sending the Army of the Ohio off towards Chattanooga far to the east. The other two forces became first an occupation force before taking new courses of action. Splitting Halleck’s army up gave Grant back his job as commander, first of the Army of the Tennessee on 10 June, and later as commander of the District of West Tennessee. With the failure of McClellan in the Peninsular Campaign and Seven Days’ Battles, Lincoln tabbed Halleck to come out east to serve as the Federal commander-in-chief.
DISBANDING THE MASSIVE FEDERAL FORCE
In addition to the departure of Buell’s army – Pope had left shortly after Corinth for his own adventures in Virginia – George Thomas’ old division was carved off the Army of the Tennessee to march off east with Buell. Three of William Rosecrans’ five divisions of the Army of the Mississippi went with Thomas, as well. Grant now saw his force of some 80,000 whittled to less than 50,000 and forced to scatter many over his large district, also subsequently enlarged. Now on the defensive, this was for Grant his “most anxious period of the war.”
SECOND BATTLE OF CORINTH
Lead Up
As John Pope went back east to take command of the Army of Virginia in June, his replacement – 26 June – for the Army of the Mississippi, became William S. Rosecrans, a fellow classmate of the West Point class of 1842 (Pope was 17th in the class rankings while Rosecrans was 5th – Rosecrans soon-to-be rival Earl Van Dorn was a classmate, as well, ranking 52nd). As part of the District of West Tennessee, Rosecrans found himself under the command of the restored U.S. Grant. But with the breakup of Halleck’s massive army following the Siege of Corinth, Rosecrans found himself short to cover the area of northeastern Mississippi and northwestern Alabama.
momentum swing
Late summer brought about a big change in momentum, swinging back towards Southern fortunes. Both in the East and West, Confederate armies were on the move. Lee pushed north after Second Manassas, where he defeated one John Pope. Braxton Bragg – the new Confederate commander in the West – ignored Buell’s push to Chattanooga – slow as it was – taking the largest chunk of those who went through the Shiloh and First Corinth battles, for an invasion through central Tennessee into Kentucky. That left the mostly Trans-Mississippi forces under General Sterling Price and Earl Van Dorn to keep Grant and his men busy in the lower Tennessee. Their longer-term goal was to recover Corinth. Price’s 3,000-man Army of the West had been in Tupelo before Bragg left to march north.
vAN DORN AND PRICE COME WEST
The 2,000-man Federal brigade of Colonel Robert C. Murphy abandoned his supply post depot at Iuka on the Memphis & Charleston Railroad about twenty miles to the east of Corinth in the face of Price’s advance. Price then awaited the arrival of Van Dorn’s force coming north from Vicksburg, so they could combine their strength. In response, Grant sent two Federal forces to trap Price, one force under Rosecrans from the southwest while Grant and others would come in from the northwest. Price was defeated on 19 September but only Rosecrans Army of the Mississippi was involved. Grant’s force, under Brigadier General Edward Ord, never engaged and Price’s force escaped their trap.
United, Van Dorn – in command – looked to defeat Rosecrans who was now in Corinth with 15,000 men, before Rosecrans could call in reinforcements from other nearby garrisons – another 8,000 men. Van Dorn slipped his 22,000-man force northwest around Corinth like he was going to head into western Tennessee. He then circled back to attack Corinth. Grant had ordered Rosecrans to concentrate his forces on the rail hub. Taking command at Corinth 26 September, Rosecrans moved to improve the defenses, special attention going to the north and northwest fronts.
Battle – Day One
On the night of 2 October, Van Dorn gathered his generals together over a sketch on paper as he showed how he wanted his units to maneuver in an attack on the next morning. The others came out of their meeting not quite understanding what their roles were for the next day, however. Moving at dawn, skirmishers came into contact as the Confederates of General Mansfield Lovell met the Federals of Colonel John M. Oliver’s brigade. Van Dorn hoped this contact would lead Rosecrans to reinforce Oliver – which he did – while Price would work around and strike at the Federal right.
Confederate attack
Fighting from near the old Confederate trenches used earlier during the Siege, the Federal divisions of Thomas J. McKean and Thomas A. Davies arrived to help. A gap had formed between those two divisions which the Confederates found and exploited. Hard pressed, Rosecrans pulled his men back several hundred yards to inner defensive positions closer to the town. He had a division under Charles S. Hamilton positioned on the left side of the Confederate attack, but Hamilton failed to take the initiative and the opportunity slipped away as the sun set on the first day.
Van Dorn felt confident after driving back the Federals for most of the day. Like Beauregard after Day One at Shiloh, Van Dorn prematurely reported his victory to Richmond. For the second day, Van Dorn planned to attack the Federal right first, with Brigadier General Dabney H. Maury’s division then attacking the center, followed by an attack on the Federal left by Lovell.
Battle – Day Two
The attack on 4 October was to begin at dawn with Louis Hebert’s division. Hebert – West Point class of 1841, however, was sick and Brigadier General Martin E. Green stepped up to command. His attack did not begin until 0800, four hours late. They were initially successful as they overran Battery Powell, but they were thrown back by a counterattack from Hamilton’s Federals.
With Green, finally on the move, Maury’s men attacked Battery Robinett. He faced Union reinforcements in the shape of Brigadier General David S. Stanley. Three attacks failed to capture the redoubt, but men of the brigade of Charles W. Phifer pushed through a gap between Stanley and Davies’ division posted further to the Federal right (In between Stanley and Hamilton). Some Confederates made it into the heart of Corinth before being thrown back by Federal counterattacks.
Lovell, in the meantime, took his time getting his men into position. By the time they were ready, the rest of the Confederate attacks had been spent. Van Dorn, realizing more Federal reinforcements were arriving quickly sent by Grant, decided to withdraw with Lovell covering the retreat. Confederate casualties included 4,838 men while Federal losses stood at 2,359 men – 22% loss for Van Dorn and 10% loss for Rosecrans.
Aftermath
Rosecrans tended to think his command was independent, which it was not. The two had been friends before the war but recently had problems after problems they encountered at Iuka. After Corinth, Rosecrans clashed with Grant, again complaining about Grant’s congratulatory order of 21 October which Rosecrans felt belittled his contribution. He took his complaints to the press which took his side over Grant. Rosecrans enjoyed a friendship with Cincinnati newspapermen.
It was thought Rosecrans was trying to organize a smear campaign against his commander. Grant’s chief of staff, John Rawlins received a letter from the colonel of the 78th Ohio Regiment, Mortimer D. Leggett, whose men were stationed further north at Jackson, Tennessee, “Major General Rosecrans is undoubtedly an excellent officer–and I hope, for his honor, and the honor of his state, that he is not a party in this hellish attempt to ruin Genl. Grant–but the evidence is such, that I cannot rid my mind of the conviction that he must be, at least, privy to the whole devilish scheme.”
GRANT AND ROSECRANS
Another problem arose from Rosecrans congratulatory address to his men after the battle in which he denigrated the efforts of the men of Thomas A. Davies’ division for their actions on 3 October, “I desire especially to offer my thanks to General Davies and his Division, whose magnificent fighting on the third more than atones for all that was lacking on the fourth.” Brigadier General Grenville Dodge replaced Davies at Corinth. Dodge noted in his memoirs he received a note from Grant which “…informed me that he had assigned me to the command of the Second Division of the Army of the Tennessee at Corinth, and quietly but with a determination that struck me so forcibly that I could make no answer, said: ”And I want you to understand you are not going to command a Division of cowards.”
The two became further entangled with each other over the press coverage Rosecrans positively received. Grant’s staff wanted him to relieve Rosecrans, however, Grant did not want to go that far. He still thought Rosecrans as a valuable commander. But Rosecrans now went over Grant’s head contacting Halleck – now as Commander-in-Chief – complaining of “the spirit of mischief among the mousing politicians on Grant’s staff.” He went on to ask to be relieved of duty from the Army of the Mississippi. In reply, on 23 October, Halleck ordered Grant to “direct Major-General Rosecrans to immediately repair to Cincinnati, where he will receive orders.” Both men were happy to be out of each other’s hair, though they would circle back around again a year later in Chattanooga.
CONTRABAND CAMP
With the battle of 3-4 October over – and more importantly, the Battle of Antietam resolving to end Lee’s first invasion of the North, President Lincoln announced a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on 22 September 1862. The act declared that as of January 1, 1863, all enslaved people in the states currently engaged in rebellion against the Union “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” Already, in July 1862, Congress passed the Militia Act, allowing Black men to serve in the U.S. armed forces as laborers, and the Confiscation Act, mandating enslaved people seized from Confederate supporters would be declared forever free. The preliminary proclamation gave Confederate States 100 days to rejoin the Union – 1 January 1863 – or their slaves would be considered – at least by the Federal government – free.
With the Proclamation more and more slaves fled their plantations with many seeking refuge in the Federally occupied Corinth. Grenville Dodge came to be the garrison commander in Corinth after Rosecrans left near the end of October. Establishing a “Contraband Camp” to house the many people looking for Federal protection, he created a small town next to Corinth with houses, church school and a hospital. 400 acres were given over to farm vegetables and cotton on. Harvests were sold to the government and workers paid for their work. At the height of the camp, almost 6,000 ex-slaves resided there.
EX-SLAVES AS SOLDIERS
Dodge also saw military significance in the acts passed. He gathered, trained and armed male ex-slaves, tasking them with providing security for the camp. This was but a step along the way to the eventual formation of the United States Colored Infantry in which 200,000 men would serve before the end of the war. During the Federal garrison period of May 1863 to January 1864, one full infantry regiment and another infantry battalion of USCT soldiers were recruited and organized here in Corinth.
The camp lasted a little over a year before moving to Memphis. You can visit the site where a portion of the camp used to exist on the east side of Corinth off North Parkway Street.
CORINTH CIVL WAR INTERPRETIVE CENTER
A fancy name for a Visitor Center, the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center is a must starting point for making some sense of what transpired at Corinth during the Civil War. Like many ex-battlefields, life goes on. The city of Corinth has grown up and over many of the entrenchments and redoubts of 1862 either by the Confederates or the Federals (Note that much in the way of defensive works developed from the work of slaves on the part of the Confederates or ex-slaves on the part of the Federals). A couple places on the edge of the city; parts of trench lines are still visible. The crossing of the two rail lines is still visible with the 1912 railway station present on the southeast corner – today a museum devoted to the rail history which so defined Corinth.
The Interpretive Center dates to the early 21st century and is officially part of the Shiloh National Military Park. Corinth went through several phases during the war. You can investigate each through the Center’s exhibits. There is also a partial reconstruction of Battery Robinett behind the Center on the north side. It is not the first reconstruction. While looking at the reconstruction, remember this model represents the former redoubt in much smaller size.
BATTERY ROBINETT
Corinth was fortified first by the Confederates along the north and east approaches. To defend the town from Rebel attacks after the successful occupation, the Federals added more artillery fortifications to the southern and western approaches. Late in the summer of 1862, General William Rosecrans ordered seven new emplacements built closer into the town since his occupying force being much smaller than the army Halleck brought to Corinth in the spring. Rosecrans did not have enough men to cover the old Confederate trench lines. Battery Robinett was one of these later redoubts.
The lunette was about thirty-five yards wide by 40 yards deep and was open to the rear. There were seven-foot-high parapets and a 10-yard-wide ditch in front with embrasures for three 20-pound Parrett rifled cannons. On the north side of the Interpretative Center, the replica of the old lunette feature those three guns, but there is hardly enough room for one gun crew to work inside the reconstruction let alone three. Approaching the battery – through cannon and rifle fire – attackers had to fight their way over an abatis and a ditch before getting to the battery walls. The battery was commanded by Henry Clay Robinett.
Henry Clay Robinett
Robinett graduated from the Delaware Military Academy in 1861 at age 20. He elected a commission in the Regular Army – 1st Infantry Regiment Company C – as opposed to the Delaware Volunteers. His company became assigned to handle siege artillery pieces instead of being used as traditional infantry. They started with two 20-pounder and four 30-pounder Parrott guns along with four 24-pounder siege guns. They took part in the earlier Siege of Corinth firing off rounds at the Confederate fortifications 15 May 1862. His men went on to help construct the artillery redoubt as part of Rosecrans new inner line of defenses.
battery robinett
The battery was one of six major batteries erected and armed by Union soldiers during the summer of 1862. The battery sits at one-half mile from the railroad crossing, enabling the Federals to better guard against forces approaching from the west or south. Located on a hill 400 feet north of the Memphis & Charleston Railroad, it was connected by rifle-pits with Battery Williams, to the south, and Battery Powell, to the northeast. After the battle, the battery was leveled in the winter of 1863, some 12 months after the Battle of Corinth, as Union forces evacuated the area.
The actual earthwork has been determined to be about 100 feet away from the replica just south of the grave of Colonel William Rogers – the tall obelisk just east of the Center.
Battery on 4 October
During the Battle of Corinth, Battery Robinett served as one of the focal points of the battle on 4 October. The artillery inside and outside the redoubt already cut big swaths through the Confederate ranks as they frontally assaulted the battery. Three separate attacks were mounted before the last wave led by Colonel William P. Rogers and his 2nd Texas Infantry reached over into the redoubt. Hand-to-hand combat ensued in which Robinett was knocked out by a Minié ball grazing across his scalp. Federal infantry units supporting the battery then closed upon the surviving Texans repulsing them a third and last time. In total, of the 26 men of Robinett’s battery, 13 became casualties from the fighting.
HENRY Robinett afterwards
Robinett went on leave after the battle – brevet promotion to captain – but was back on duty with the 1st US in January 1863. At Vicksburg, Robinett helped support the assault of an attack on the 2nd Texas lunette. He turned in his cannons with the fall of Vicksburg moving to the garrison of New Orleans. He managed to find a way onto Grant’s staff in 1865 gaining a promotion to brevet major on Grant’s recommend. With the war over, Robinett reverted in rank to a 1st lieutenant and was back in New Orleans on garrison duty.
Peacetime duty did not serve the still young lieutenant. Three court martials in 1865 and 1866 saw Robinett dismissed from the army twice. Both times, he was able to find friends in high places to gain reinstatement. He even gained a promotion to captain in February 1867. With the death of his fiancé two months later, Robinett’s mood changed. He sought release from the army on grounds of disability due to his head wound. Doctors supported his case, but the Pension Board in Philadelphia rejected it. Returning to the 1st US Infantry in New Orleans at the start of 1868, his friends noted a changed man. Problems with constant pain and difficulty in simple calculations. Finally, on 22 April 1868, Robinett shot himself. He lies buried at Chalmette National Cemetery.
CONFEDERATE GRAVES
Colonel William P. Rogers
William P. Rogers led the 2nd Texas Infantry – of which he went to war with initially as a lieutenant colonel – along with the 6th and 9th Texas Cavalry (both dismounted and acting here as infantry), a company of the 42nd Alabama and some men of the 35th Mississippi Infantry, all parts of Brigadier General John Creed Moore’s brigade (Maury’s division). Moore’s brigade came into the battle marching behind the lead brigade of Maury’s division led by Charles W. Phifer. Both brigades split into two as they assaulted the Federals around 1000. Some of those going to the east made it all the way into the center of Corinth before they were turned back. Those attacking to the west, centered their attention on Battery Robinett.
Rogers grew up on a plantation in Aberdeen, Mississippi, about 85 miles directly south of Corinth. He graduated from a medical college in Kentucky and started practicing in a neighboring county. Medicine was not enough to hold the interest of the young man as he studied law on his own and edited a pro-Whig newspaper in Aberdeen. Passing the Mississippi State Bar in 1842, he began practicing law. With the Mexican War, Rogers became captain of Company K 1st Mississippi Volunteers led by Colonel Jefferson Davis. As part of the small army of General Zachary Taylor, Rogers was one of the first to scale the walls of the fort at Monterrey on 21 September 1846. He performed well at the climactic battle of Buena Vista in February 1847 but had personality problems with Davis during the campaign.
AFTER THE MEXICAN WAR
After the war, Taylor appointed Rogers as US Consul at Veracruz. Already with six children, his wife did not want to go past Texas, so he went to his post alone. Serving until September 1851 when he resigned over false allegations of embezzlement by one of his agents, Rogers returned to his family where they settled at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Practicing law in his new town, he also found time to become one of the law professors in the new law school at Baylor University.
Moving to Houston in 1859, Rogers switched from the Whigs to the Democrats because of the growing abolition movement in the North. With Lincoln’s election, he became one of the delegates to sign Texas’ ordinance of secession 1 February 1861. With the war, Rogers was offered command of the 1st Texas, but since that unit was headed for Virginia, he accepted a lieutenant colonel position in Moore’s 2nd Texas.
2nd Texas enters the Civil War
The 2nd Texas fought well at Shiloh, but casualties claimed a third of its soldiers. When Moore was elevated to brigade command, Rogers became the colonel of the 2nd Texas. Fellow officers urged Richmond to promote Rogers to major general and divisional command. That petition fell on deaf ears with Jefferson Davis’ long memory. Here, at Corinth, Rogers was ordered to lead the attack on Battery Robinett. After two failed charges, Rogers led his men once more across an open field of downed trees to assault the redoubt. This time they reached a six-foot ditch in front of the six-foot high parapet walls.
at battery robinett
Here, accounts vary. Some said he breached Battery Robinett with a small number of men, to be shot down inside. Others said he grabbed the regiment’s battle flag and then shot dead while climbing the parapet. If so, he would have become the fifth standard bearer for the 2nd Texas to fall in their last charge. Some claim he was mounted when killed, while others say he was on foot. The one Confederate survivor, J.A. McKinistry – a private in the 42nd Alabama – of the attack has Rogers gathering a small band outside the fort in the ditch. His last words to his men, “Save yourselves, or sell your lives as dear as possible.” He was wearing an armored breastplate under his uniform that day, but in the close-up action, it did not save him. Supposedly Rogers became hit by at least eight bullets and maybe as many as eleven.
rogers’ death
Rogers’ death became one of the most well-known incidents of the battle; his body famously photographed shortly thereafter.
General Rosecrans later said, “He was one of the bravest men that ever led a charge. Bury him with military honors and mark his grave, so his friends can claim him. The time will come when there will be a monument here to commemorate his bravery.” Rogers lies in a marked grave where he fell. In 1912, the United Daughters of the Confederacy dedicated the white marble obelisk marking his grave. The National Park Service tells the story of Battery Robinett over the years after the war.
Unknown Soldiers – ConfederatE
A row of six unknown Confederate soldier’s graves set next to Colonel Rogers. These men were color bearers falling here alongside their colonel on 4 October 1862. Right by the row of six stands a large granite block commemorating the many Confederates who died here attacking Battery Robinett. This monument dates to 1912, unveiled at the same time as the obelisk to Colonel Rogers. Most Confederates buried at Corinth lie in mass graves with one of them here at Battery Robinett. Many others lay unburied in the surrounding woods.
GEORGE WASHINGTON FOSTER
One of those buried in a mass grave here at Battery Robinett was Captain George W. Foster who commanded Company A 42nd Alabama. Lieutenant Charles Labruzan also of the 42nd Alabama, described Foster’s final moments. ”The men were falling ten at a time. The ditch being full, and finding that we had no chance, we, the survivors, tired to save ourselves as best we could…. Captain Foster and I started together, and the air was literally filled with hissing balls. I got about twenty steps as quick as I could, about a dozen being killed in that distance. I fell down and crawled behind a large stump.
Just then I saw poor Foster throw up his hands, and saying, “Oh! My God!” he jumped about two feet off the ground and fell on his face. The top of his head seemed to cave in and the blood spurted straight up several feet. I could see men falling as they attempted to run…….Oh! it was horrible.'” A famous picture – one of only three known to show dead soldiers on the field in the Western theaters – shows a group of men gathered together next to the battery walls. On the left lies Colonel Rogers. Next to him on the right is Captain Foster.
42ND aLABAMA
While the 2nd Texas gets most written about their attack because of the fall of their commander, the 42nd Alabama also suffered greatly in the attacks of 4 October. The colonel of the 42nd Alabama, John W. Portis, was wounded at Corinth. He survived to lead his men into captivity at Vicksburg. Portis resigned following his parole. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas C. Lanier of the 42nd also suffered a wound here. He would go on to become the regiment’s colonel when Portis left. In total, the 42nd lost 98 men killed outright with another 250 wounded or captured. Three of their flagbearers also died that day.
BRIGADIER GENERAL JOSEPH LEWIS HOGG
Joseph L. Hogg grew up in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. He became a lawyer and served as a colonel in the local militia. With his wife, they moved to Texas in 1839 where he started a law practice near Nacogdoches. In 1843-1844, he gained election to the House of Representatives in the 8th Congress of the Texas Republic. One year later, he served as a delegate to the Convention of 1845 advocating annexation to the US for Texas. Hogg became a Senator in the 1st Legislature but resigned to serve in the 2nd Regiment Texas Mounted Volunteers fighting in the Mexican War.
After that war, he remained in the law profession though also dabbled in railroads and real estate. The 1860 US census showed he owned 26 slaves along with $29,000 in real estate and personal property – that equals over $1 million in today’s dollars. At the Secession Convention in 18160, he voted for secession. Next, he became a captain organizing a company of what became the 3rd Texas Cavalry. The Texas governor tabbed him for a colonel’s commission soon after helping to organize East Texas troops.
Hogg goes to war
Hogg next gained an appointment as a brigadier general – 14 February 1861 – reporting to the Army of the West near Fayetteville, Arkansas. His brigade soon left to help rebuild the Confederate forces at Corinth after the heavy losses of Shiloh. The brigade included the 10th, 11th, 14th and 32nd Texas Cavalry Regiments – all dismounted – along with the 31st Arkansas Infantry. Good’s Texas Battery supplied artillery support for the brigade. Good’s guns were the only Texas battery to serve east of the Mississippi River during the war.
At Corinth, Hogg clashed with Beauregard over imagined threats from non-existent Federals (Imagined by Hogg). But soon after that episode, he sickened from a plaque of dysentery running through the brigade camp. Moved into a private home, Hogg died on May 16 one of the many Confederates and Federals to die from illness during the Siege. He lay buried at the Mount Holly School first. His body moved here next to Battery Robinett in 1918 by his grandchildren.
Hogg’s brigade would go on without the old Texan fighting many battles with the Army of Tennessee under another Texan’s command, Mathew Ector.
TEXAS STATE MONUMENT
Since there are two field grade Texans buried here in Corinth along with many more common soldiers, Texas erected this monument to the efforts of all Texans taking part in the various battles that took place in and around Corinth. The monument erected in 2010, followed the completion of the Interpretive Center.
FEDERAL GRAVES
The recent Unknowns
Many of the Federal dead were removed to the nearby Corinth National Cemetery, though many were missed. Here, a short distance from the former battery location, the remains of two Federal soldiers became discovered in 1999 through ground penetrating radar investigations. They lie in shallow graves, neither of whose identity known. One soldier was a young Caucasian in his teens while the other was mid to late twenties Black soldier. After forensic investigations were completed, the men were re-buried in their original places. An official re-interment ceremony was performed 19 May 2007.
Corinth National Cemetery
The Corinth National Cemetery dates to 1866. Managed by the Little Rock National Cemetery, the cemetery here in Corinth holds over 7,000 interments. Most of the dead came from battles – 15 to 20 – here in Corinth and nearby camps and hospitals from Tennessee and Mississippi. By late 1870, more than 5,688 remains rested here – 1,793 remains known while 3,895 remain unknown. Two of the known soldiers were Confederates and one of the unknown, as well. The dead come from 273 different regiments and 15 different States. The known soldiers range in rank from private – by far the most common – up to captain.