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The Battle of Iuka was fought on September 19, 1862, in Iuka, Mississippi, during the American Civil War. 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.
Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant brought two armies to confront Price in a double envelopment: Rosecrans's Army of the Mississippi, approaching Iuka from the southwest, and three divisions of his own Army of the Tennessee under Maj. Gen. Edward Ord, approaching from the northwest. Although Grant and Ord planned to attack in conjunction with Rosecrans when they heard the sound of battle, an acoustic shadow suppressed the sound and prevented them from realizing that the battle had begun. After an afternoon of fighting, entirely by Rosecrans's men, the Confederates withdrew from Iuka on a road that had not been blocked by the Union army, marching to rendezvous with Confederate Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn, with whom they would soon fight the Second Battle of Corinth against Rosecrans.
The Union casualties at Iuka were 790 (144 killed, 598 wounded, 40 captured or missing); the Confederates lost 1,516 (263 killed, 692 wounded, 561 captured or missing). The most senior casualty was Confederate General Little, who was struck in the eye by a bullet while accompanying Price. Among the ordnance stores abandoned by the Confederates were 1,629 stand of arms, a large stock of quartermaster and commissary stores, and 13,000 rounds of ammunition. Grant had partially accomplished his objective—Price was not able to link up with Bragg in Kentucky, but Rosecrans had not been able to destroy the Confederate army or prevent it from linking up with Van Dorn and threatening the critical railroad junction at Corinth.