 His position as a Catholic editor involved him in many controversies, one being on the life and teachings of Martin Luther, for which Corcoran procured from Europe an abundance of Lutherana.He had made great headway with the preparation of a life of Luther, when in 1861 his manuscript and library were destroyed by fire.During the American Civil War his sympathies were with the South, and the end of the struggle found him rector of a parish in Wilmington, North Carolina, where he stayed during an epidemic of cholera which decimated his congregation.