Early in October of 1862, Confederate Major General Earl Van Dorn led an army of 22,000 from Ripley, Mississippi to Corinth on the  state's northern edge, a key railroad crossroads and gateway to Tennessee. Van Dorn's force consisted largely of the Trans-Mississippi army that he had brought from Arkansas, including many hardened Texas fighters. The last 20 miles of their march was through drought-parched country. At Corinth, they would have to fight for water. Facing them was a larger-than-expected Union army of 23,000, in entrenchments that, ironically, Van Dorn's men had dug months earlier.

"No army ever marched to battle with prouder steps, more hopeful countenances, or with more courage," Van Dorn said. Before them, on the same ridge from which Union generals had retreated months before, was a mass of entrenched bluecoats. Van Dorn's tired but determined men had the will to press on. Under their splendid colors, they charged up the ridge with a desperate fighting spirit, undeterred by withering fire. As the merciless sun beat down on the thirsty rebels, they kept pressing the stubborn Federals, finally routing the defenders from the ridge by midday.
Capturing several pieces of artillery, the Confederates pushed ahead toward the wells, as the tough Yankee defenders backed up to fight at four different holding positions. As the sun descended, the Federals fell back to the inner entrenchments and the Confederates quenched their thirst at the captured Union wells. Another hour of daylight would have meant complete victory, Van Dorn said, but his hard-driving troops were spent. On October 4,1862, they attacked Corinth's inner defenses, some breaking through to the city's streets, but were too exhausted from the intense heat and overwhelming fire to carry the day.

When war broke out, Mississippian Earl Van Dorn requested an action command and distinguished himself in Texas as such a tough adversary that a Northern editor put a $5,000 bounty on his head! After being promoted to the rank of major general in September 1861, Van Dorn was given command of the Trans-Mississippi District, including the Army of the West.
In March 1862, his army struck an invading Federal force at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, the largest Civil War battle fought west of the Mississippi. In April 1862, Van Dorn brought his army across the mighty river under his new flag, but arrived too late to engage in the Battle of Shiloh. His army of 20,000 to 25,000 troops joined other Confederate troops at Corinth, Mississippi, where outbreaks of typhoid and dysentery resulted in more Southern deaths than suffered at "Bloody Shiloh." In June 1862, Van Dorn was charged with the key defense of Vicksburg, the Confederacy's bastion on the Mississippi, where he built entrenchments and repulsed Union thrusts toward the city. Four months later, he led an army back to Corinth, where their clash with Federal forces was one of the fiercest-fought of the war.

A skilled horseman, Van Dorn led some of the most successful cavalry raids in the West. In December 1862, he thwarted General Ulysses S. Grant's campaign against Vicksburg by sweeping around Grant's army with 3,500 cavalrymen and devastating his supply depot at Holly Springs in central Mississippi. With the aid of cavalry genius General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 1,221 Union infantrymen were captured at Thompson's Station, Tennessee, in March 1863. Then Van Dorn sent Forrest north to Brentwood, where an entire Federal garrison surrendered and another bonanza of supplies fell into Confederate hands.
As Van Dorn sat in his headquarters in Spring Hill, Tennessee, planning more attacks, Dr. George B. Peters assassinated him with a pistol shot to the back of his head on May 7,1863. Because Van Dorn was known to be a lady's man, many believe that Dr. Peters' motive was that of an irate husband. The doctor subsequently escaped behind Union lines.