Earl Van Dorn was born on September 17, 1820, near Port Gibson in Clairborne County, Mississippi. In 1838 he was appointed to the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, graduating four years later, 52nd in a class of 56. After graduation he began a career as a U. S. Army officer, fighting with distinction during the Mexican-American War and against several tribes of Native Americans.
In January 1861, he resigned his commission in the U. S. Army and was appointed brigadier general in the Mississippi Militia, replacing Jefferson Davis as commander of Mississippi State Forces. In January 1862, Van Dorn assumed command of the Trans-Mississippi District. Leading the forces of General Sterling Price and General Benjamin McCulloch at the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas in March 1862, Van Dorn was defeated, even though his army outnumbered the Union army. In his official report of the battle, Van Dorn wrote “a series of accidents entirely unforeseen not under my control and a badly-disciplined army defeated my intentions.”
After his forces were defeated in an attack on Corinth, Mississippi in October 1862, Van Dorn was subjected to a court of inquiry, but was exonerated. His reputation received a much needed boost with his highly successful raid on General U.S. Grant’s supply base at Holly Springs, Mississippi, in December 1862, and the destruction of a Union force at Thompson’s Station, Tennessee, the following March.
It was Van Dorn’s reputation as a womanizer, not a Union bullet, that led to his death in May 1863. Van Dorn was shot at his headquarters at Spring Hill, Tennessee, by Dr. James Peters, who claimed Van Dorn had carried on an affair with his wife. Peters was arrested by Confederate authorities but was never brought to trial.
Image Courtesy Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield; WICR 31608
