By 1861, Corinth had become a boomtown thanks to the crossing of two major railroads at this location. The Memphis and Charleston, completed in 1857, and the Mobile and Ohio, completed in 1861, spurred the development of a new trade center for farmers in southwest Tennessee and northeast Mississippi.
More importantly, when the war broke out, the Memphis and Charleston was the only rail route from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean in the entire South. And the Mobile and Ohio was the longest north-south route in the South, providing access to the deep South. Holding on to these rail lines were vital to the Confederate cause in the movement of troops and supplies, and in communcation.
Both sides knew that Corinth was the lynchpin of military control in northern Mississippi.
Shiloh National Military Park
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service