About Corinth chanticleer. [volume] (Corinth Miss.) 1863-1863
Corinth Miss. (1863-1863)

In the winter of 1861-62, Union troops moved into Kentucky and Tennessee forcing the Confederate army to establish a new line of defenses further south to protect the vital north-south Mobile and Ohio and the east-west Memphis and Charleston railroads, which intersected at Corinth, Mississippi. On April 6-7, 1862, the pivotal battle was fought at Shiloh, Tennessee, 20 miles north of Corinth, to control this strategic communication and supply hub crucial to the Confederate war effort. The Confederates were defeated and on May 31, 1862, Union troops entered Corinth which they occupied through January 1864.

During the occupation, Union soldiers in Corinth, who before the war had worked in newspapers, practiced their regular trades resulting in the publication of two short-lived, four-page titles. The earliest was the Corinth War Eagle (1862-62?), also known as the Corinth Eagle, which began on July 31, 1862 and may have lasted until December of that year. It was published on Thursday mornings by editor/publisher Elbridge Dwight Fenn. Corinth's second occupation newspaper, consisting for a time of four half-sheet pages, was the Corinth Chanticleer (1863), published and edited by C. W. Hildreth of the Second Iowa Infantry. Hildreth announced that "The Chanticleer is published as often as the immense amount of work which is crowded upon us will permit." Begun in May 1863 and ending some time later that year, it was similar in tone and content to the Corinth War Eagle. The two papers reported news about Union soldiers in Corinth, Union victories, and Rebel losses and issued derogatory editorials about southern troops. Legal notices and news about the state or county found in most local papers were absent. However, the War Eagle carried some business advertisements, including one for jeweler Frank Murphy, who claimed "not [to] swindle the soldier," and it also published a list of arrivals at the Corinth House Hotel consisting mainly of Northern soldiers. Other news included general orders by General Ulysses S. Grant regarding citizens of the "State of Rebellion."