[1] Corbin was teaching school and studying law when the American Civil War broke out.

Corbin was appointed to the official staff of President Rutherford B. Hayes, serving at the White House from 1877 to 1881.

He took command of the Northern Division in February 1906 and was promoted to lieutenant general in April 1906, making him the senior ranking officer on active duty in the U.S. Army.

[4] His portrait was painted at least twice by the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury, once in 1899, and again in 1904, the latter of which was donated by Mrs Edythe Patten Corbin to the National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. in 1941, transferred to National Portrait Gallery in 1971.

[7] On November 6, 1901, Corbin married Edythe Agnes Patten,[6] one of five sisters who were heir to a mining fortune.

[8] Her older sister Katherine Augusta Patten had married Missouri congressman John M. Glover in February 1887.

The officiant at the Roman Catholic service was Cardinal Gibbons, with President Theodore Roosevelt and his wife in attendance.