National Park Service hosting candlelit tour of Civil War era Corinth

On Saturday, Nov. 3, the National Park Service is partnering with Visit Corinth to present a candlelight guided tour of Civil War Corinth.
Each 90-minute, one mile walking tour takes participants into the Civil War era and give them an opportunity to meet a few soldiers and citizens of Corinth, Mississippi in 1862.
•First up will be Private Daniel Murray, an immigrant from County Cork, Ireland. Murray joined the U.S. Army a full year before the war and spent some time on the western frontier. He was assigned to Company C, 1st Infantry and when the war began he saw action at the battle of Wilson’s Creek and the siege of Corinth. Murray was killed while at his post inside Battery Robinett on October 4, 1862. His body rests in an unknown grave in the Corinth National Cemetery.
•Native New Yorker, Lt. Col. John Wilcox of the 52nd Illinois Infantry was a stalwart soldier. Wilcox enlisted early and fought with distinction at Shiloh and Corinth. He began his military career as a captain and when he hung up his spurs at the end of the war he had been elevated to the lofty rank of brigadier general.
•Kate Cumming faced displeasure of her family and the scorn of society with her decision to serve as a nurse for the Confederate Army. Female nurses, particularly in the early months of the war, were rare. It was a job most commonly held by men and certainly not by a young lady of standing. Miss Cumming arrived in Corinth just as the flood of wounded men descended from Shiloh.
•Next is a man without a name. He is simply a “Contraband of War,” a slave who fled a life of bondage in search of freedom. He was just one of thousands of men, as well as women and children, who came individually and in small groups looking for refuge at the Corinth Contraband Camp.
•On Fillmore Street was the home of Florida Augusta Inge and her husband William. The small house, known as “Rose Cottage,” served as the headquarters for Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston. As he was about to ride away to attack the enemy at Shiloh, she slipped two sandwiches and a piece of cake into his coat pocket. Three days later she was preparing his body to be shipped south for burial and discovered one of the sandwiches still in his coat.
•Pvt. Thomas D. Duncan enlisted in the Tishomingo Rangers, but his first important service came as a courier during the Battle of Shiloh. Following Confederate defeat the young man was instrumental in assisting Confederate engineers in determining the positioning of the seven mile-long “Beauregard Line” of earthworks.
•And lastly, Lt. Charles Labuzan of the 42nd Alabama Infantry. At the age of 20 he was the acting British Consul in Mobile and then the war broke out. He was captured during the Battle of Corinth, just outside the walls of Battery Robinett.
Tour groups will depart every 15 minutes from the park visitor center in Corinth, Mississippi and follow a winding path lined with over 2,000 luminary candles. The tours begin at 4:30 p.m., with the last group leaving at 7 p.m.
The event is free but registration is required. Call the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center at 662-287-9273 to pre-register. At the tour’s end everyone is invited to have cup of hot apple cider at the Interpretive Center.