nel Murphy of the 8th Wisconsin. He
had been detained to guard the remainder of the stores which had not yet
been brought in to Corinth.

On the 13th of September General Sterling Price entered Iuka, a town
about twenty miles east of Corinth on the Memphis and Charleston
railroad. Colonel Murphy with a few men was guarding the place. He
made no resistance, but evacuated the town on the approach of the enemy.
I was apprehensive lest the object of the rebels might be to get troops
into Tennessee to reinforce Bragg, as it was afterwards ascertained to
be. The authorities at Washington, including the general-in-chief of
the army, were very anxious, as I have said, about affairs both in East
and Middle Tennessee; and my anxiety was quite as great on their account
as for any danger threatening my command. I had not force enough at
Corinth to attack Price even by stripping everything; and there was
danger that before troops could be got from other points he might be far
on his way across the Tennessee. To prevent this all spare forces at
Bolivar and Jackson were ordered to Corinth, and cars were concentrated
at Jackson for their transportation. Within twenty-four hours from the
transmission of the order the troops were at their destination, although
there had been a delay of four hours resulting from the forward train
getting off the track and stopping all the others. This gave a
reinforcement of near 8,000 men, General Ord in command. General
Rosecrans commanded the district of Corinth with a movable force of
about 9,000 independent of the garrison deemed necessary to be left
behind. It was known that General Van Dorn was about a four days' march
south of us, with a large force. It might have been part of his plan to
attack at Corinth, Price coming from the east while he came up from the
south. My desire was to attack Price before Van Dorn could reach
Corinth or go to his relief.

General Rosecrans had previously had his headquarters at Iuka, where his
command was spread out along the Memphis and Charleston railroad
eastward. While there he had a most excellent map prepared showing all
the roads and streams in the surrounding country. He was also
personally familiar with the ground, so that I deferred very much to him
in my plans for the approach. We had cars enough to transport all of
General Ord's command, which was to go by rail to Burnsville, a point on
the road about seven miles west of Iuka. From there