Corinthians aren't ALL from Greece

A short 25 miles south from Lebanon UMC and we were in Corinth, Mississippi.  Corinth was the center of the south’s railroad communication between the east and the west in 1862.  And the target of Grant’s advance when Johnston stalled him briefly at Shiloh. And the scene of two battles in 1862 which would seal all of northern Mississippi for the north except Vicksburg, on the Mississippi River, until it fell July 4, 1863.

All of our pictures are available at my FACEBOOK site.  Ken DeWalt.  Until we get to a stronger Verizon Access point for broadband we just can’t place them here.

Corinth had been a young community at the beginning of the Civil War, just one year earlier.  Founded in 1854 because two major railroads chose to meet at its crossroads it still only had about 1500 residents and 400 of them were slaves.

But as the war began thousands of Confederate troops converged on this crossroads to be trained and then moved to theaters of active battle, and supplies began to be depoted here to defend the Western Confederacy.

Johnston had arrived several weeks before with about 40,000 soldiers of his Army of the Mississippi. Then on April 3^rd had marched north to surprise Grant’s Union Army of the Tennessee at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee.  His surprise had worked.  But a series of mistakes and tragedies, including his death, had forced the Rebels now under General PGT Beauregard to retreat on the 8^th back down the Corinth Road to begin building defensive positions to defend the supplies and the railroads from attack.

Beauregard brought more than his army back from Shiloh. He brought to this small railroad junction thousands of wounded and dying men.  The citizens responded as best they could.  Every public building and many homes became hospitals or morgues.  And the dead, many unknown but to God, were buried in shallow graves all about the town.

 Just a couple of months later Union General Halleck, Commander of all the US forces in the west, with Rosecrans replacing Grant as he was called elsewhere, and Buell over his Army of the Cumberland, would oblige. The Union advance brought another almost 100,000 troops into Corinth’s vicinity.

Corinth had not been built were it was because there was plenty of good water or healthy climate for its citizens.  It was built where it was for the railroad right of way in spite of the fact that it was surrounded by miles of swamps and had very poor ground water.

Disease was already rampant among Confederate camps and the town before the battle of Shiloh.  Now, after months of returned Confederates, hospitals, shallow burials, and latrines, the water that soldiers drank was being rejected by horses and mules.  And now the Union Army arrives.

Seven miles of breastworks and heavy siege preparations partially invested the Rebel lines at the north.  But even though the Rebels had a reasonably good position the health of the army was fading fast.  Beauregard had to decide to retreat farther south to save his army from total destruction. 

Much of the town’s buildings were burned.  All supplies which could not be carried were blown up. And the wounded who could not walk were left with the dead.  Corinth was again a  part of the United States, at least militarily.  The south had lost rail communication with its west. But just a couple of months later…

Confederate General Van Dorn put together a new Army after Beauregard was sent elsewhere by President Jefferson Davis.  Van Dorn knew it would be a high risk venture, but the south had to regain communication with the west.  On October 3^rd, 1862 he attacked with his army from the north.  The Union soldiers were in the improved entrenchments the Rebels had built back in April and May but they didn’t wait to be taken in them. General Rosecrans sallied forth out of his works and met the oncoming Rebels near Farmington, a couple of miles northeast of Corinth.

The Confederates fought hard.  They knew this attack was a major gamble for high stakes.  They pushed the federal Units back to their defenses around Corinth but by this time they were about depleted in ammunition and energy.

It was at this time that Van Dorn ordered an assault of the type Robert E Lee would order Longstreet to make at Gettysburg less than a year later.  He sent his brave Texans with supporting units from other states against the strongest part of the Union Line, Battery Robinette, where the Visitor’s Center now stands. 

The Federals admired the tough march of the attacking enemy, until they reached within 100 yards of their own works. Then Federal cannon and muskets raked the lines and though the Texas and Confederate flags would reach the top of the earthen walls, those who carried them would be some of only a few to make it that far. And they would die where they stood. The battle was over,  Van Dorn retreated as Beauregard had in the summer. But Corinth was far from out of the war.

Despite its bad location for health it was now the central switching yard for trains bearing Union supplies and men into the deep south. And one more group of the wars participants had been coming into Corinth since summer, and now were provided with a camp they could live in, at least for a while, bad water or no.

Called ‘Contraband of War’ since they were legally still classed as only property, some black slaves were escaping from their masters all over the south and heading for Union lines. Corinth became a holding place for them in Mississippi.  And it was here that the first of many refugee camps like it was built.

Northern missionaries came south, as they did in other parts of the former Confederacy, to teach the uneducated how to read, write, and do arithmetic. Those former slaves who had worked in the fields taught house slaves how to plant and grow gardens, and former house slaves taught the skills they had learned inside.

For the first time, many of these refugee freed slaves were earning wages by selling what they made or grew to soldiers and civilians of the now large wartime city of Corinth.

As we left Corinth we learned, at the town Crossroads Museum, of a local third generation food specialty shop that we had to try.  Today Lisa runs the drive up stand where her grandfather’s same recipe for hot tamales sells like hot cakes.

 In the thirties and forties they were sold at the train station to passengers going through and looking forward to a snack or meal. In the sixties they were even sold by bicycle all over town. I know; the very bicycle is in that museum.

And so today we stepped up to the window (we had walked over looking for a sit down experience) and Lisa welcomed us and gave us a double pack of MILD tamales and a fried peach pie.  Did you notice I said GAVE?  Yes, when we protested she said, “No, you have never had them before.  I want to be sure you like them before you pay for them.  Now that’s salespersonship! And Southern Hospitality.

We drove east out of Corinth and up to Pickwick State Park, to enjoy the comfortable evening by the lake.  Thank you David for telling us about the park on the east shore.  We had only visited the west shore before. Lovely. Relaxing. And tomorrow, we head east a bit farther to the town of Lawrenceburg, where David Crockett once lived, gave political speeches, and now has a park named after him.

And a day later we expect to be parked at Myra and Dave Klines near Manchester, Tennessee.  No more battlefields for a while, Mona.  Of course, you never know what we’ll find just around the next bend.

-Ken