During this hot fighting on the right, General Van Dorn, with his corps arranged in four dense columns, made an attack on the Union left, advancing on Battery Robinette. As the rebels came on they were received with a volley of grape and canister; and as they drew nearer, a murderous fire of musketry, from the Ohio brigade, met them directly in the front, and caused them to reel back in confusion to the woods in their rear. But the enemy were not yet defeated; they reformed immediately, and boldly advanced to the charge again, led on by Colonel Rogers, of the Second Texas; but a second time the dread musketry of the Ohio brigade broke over them in a perfect shower of death. The rebels held their ground with a front of desperate bravery, but when the Twenty-seventh Ohio and the Eleventh Missouri, at the order to charge, rushed forward upon them, their thinned ranks broke into fragments, and they fled wildly back to the shelter of the woods pursued by the Union soldiers, and the battle of Corinth was over—an entire and triumphant victory to the National arms.
The enemy’s loss in killed was one thousand four hundred and twenty-three officers and men; their loss in wounded amounted to five thousand six hundred and ninety-two. The Unionists took two thousand two hundred and forty-eight prisoners, among whom were one hundred and thirty-seven field-officers, captains, and subalterns, representing fifty-three regiments of infantry, sixteen regiments of cavalry, thirteen batteries of artillery, and seven battalions, making sixty-nine regiments, six battalions, and thirteen batteries, beside separate companies.
The National troops took also fourteen stands of colors, two pieces of artillery, three thousand three hundred stand of arms, four thousand five hundred rounds of ammunition, and a large lot of accoutrements. The enemy blew up several wagons between Corinth and Chewalla, and beyond Chewalla many ammunition wagons and carriages were destroyed, and the ground was strewn with tents, officers’ mess-chests, and small arms.
When it was finally ascertained that the enemy, utterly routed, were in full retreat, General Rosecrans ordered preparations for an immediate pursuit. General Grant also sent a force under General Ord and General Hurlbut to intercept and cut off the enemy’s retreat; and thus, when the rebels reached Hatchie river, they found themselves completely hemmed in—caught between two rivers—the Hatchie in front of them, the Tuscumbia behind them. For a time the capture of the entire rebel army seemed inevitable, pursued as they were by General Rosecrans, and assailed in front by the reinforcements from General Grant. Unfortunately, the Union army was too much exhausted by its recent severe efforts, to follow up the advantage; and General Price, always accomplished in carrying out a retreat, made a successful attempt to cross the Hatchie a few miles above the point where his first effort had been disputed, and so escaped with his imperilled army.
GENERAL BURNSIDE TAKES COMMAND OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC.
November 10, 1862.
On the 12th of November General Burnside issued the following address to the army:
Headquarters Army of the Potomac, Nov. 10, 1862.
In accordance with General Orders, No. 182, issued by the President of the United States, I hereby assume command of the Army of the Potomac. Patriotism, and the exercise of every energy in the direction of this army, aided by the full and hearty cooperation of its officers and men, will, I hope, under the blessing of God, insure its success.
Having been a sharer of the privations, and a witness of the bravery of the old Army of the Potomac in the Maryland campaign, and fully identified with them in their feelings of respect and esteem for General McClellan, entertained through a long and most friendly association with him, I feel that it is not as a stranger I assume command.
To the Ninth army corps, so long and intimately associated with me, I need say nothing. Our histories are identical. With diffidence for myself, but with a proud confidence in the unswerving loyalty and determination of the gallant army now intrusted to my care, I accept its control, with the steadfast assurance that the just cause must prevail.