In the opening battle of the Iuka-Corinth Campaign, Union Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans stopped the advance of the Confederate Army of the West commanded by Maj. Gen. Sterling Price.

As Confederate General Braxton Bragg moved north from Tennessee into Kentucky in September 1862, Buell pursued him from Nashville.

It was a small Union supply depot, the easternmost outpost that Grant had established on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad.

On September 14, before dawn, the Union commander, Col. Robert C. Murphy of the 8th Wisconsin Infantry, set fire to the supplies of the depot and marched his 2,000-man brigade back to Corinth.

[5] Grant did not wait to be attacked, approving a plan to converge on Price with two columns before Van Dorn, four days march to the southwest, could reinforce him.

The relatively complex plan for the two-pronged assault was actually Rosecrans's, who had previously been stationed in Iuka and felt familiar with the area.

[6] Rosecrans's Union Army of the Mississippi fielded approximately 4,500 men, organized as follows:[7] Edward Ord's two divisions did not participate in the main fighting at Iuka.

Considering this delay, Grant ordered Ord to move within 4 miles of the town, but to await the sound of fighting between Rosecrans and Price before engaging the Confederates.

Col. Mizner with a battalion of the 3rd Michigan Cavalry was sent out on the right and the 10th Iowa Infantry and a section of the 11th Ohio Battery formed the left.

A fresh north wind, blowing from Ord's position in the direction of Iuka, caused an acoustic shadow that prevented the sound of the guns from reaching him, and he and Grant knew nothing of the engagement until after it was over.

General Ord's command showed untiring zeal, but the direction taken by the enemy prevented them from taking the active part they desired.

Some rumors circulated that the reason Ord's column did not attack in conjunction with Rosecrans was not that the battle was inaudible, but that Grant was drunk and incompetent.

His third statement was in his Personal Memoirs, where he wrote "I was disappointed at the result of the battle of Iuka—but I had so high an opinion of General Rosecrans that I found no fault at the time.

The present-day Highway 25 approximates the location of the Jacinto Road used by Rosecrans's Union forces to move north into a defensive position southwest of Iuka.