Leonidas Polk

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Leonidas Polk
April 10, 1806 – June 14, 1864

Nickname The Fighting Bishop
Place of birth Raleigh, North Carolina
Place of death Cobb County, Georgia
Allegiance United States of America,
Confederate States of America
Years of service 1827 (USA), 1861–64 (CSA)
Rank Lieutenant General
Battles/wars American Civil War
- Battle of Shiloh
- Battle of Perryville
- Battle of Stones River
- Battle of Chickamauga
- Atlanta Campaign
For the agrarian leader and North Carolina's first Commissioner of Agriculture, see Leonidas Lafayette Polk.

Leonidas Polk (April 10, 1806 – June 14, 1864) was a Confederate general who was once a planter in Maury County, Tennessee, and a third cousin of President James K. Polk. He also served as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana and was for that reason known as The Fighting Bishop.

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[edit] Early life

Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1806, Polk attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill briefly before entering the United States Military Academy at West Point. During his senior year, he joined the Episcopal Church. After graduating in 1827, he resigned his commission. He was ordained as a deacon in 1830. That year, he married Frances Ann Deveraux and became assistant to Bishop Richard Channing Moore in Richmond, Virginia.

In 1832, Polk moved his family to the vast Polk "Rattle and Snap" tract in Maury County, Tennessee, and constructed a massive Greek Revival home he called "Ashwood Hall." With his four brothers in Maury County, he built a family chapel, St. John's Church, at Ashwood. He also served as priest of St. Peter's Church in Columbia, Tennessee. He was appointed Missionary Bishop of the Southwest in 1838 and was elected Bishop of Louisiana in 1841.

Bishop Polk was the leading founder of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, which he envisioned as a national university for the South and a New World equivalent to Oxford and Cambridge. (In his August 1856 letter to Bishop Elliott, he expounded on the secessionist motives for his university.) Polk's foundational legacy at Sewanee is remembered always through his portrait Sword Over the Gown, painted by Eliphalet F. Andrews in 1900. After the original was vandalized in 1998, a copy by Connie Erickson was unveiled on June 1, 2003.

[edit] Civil War

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Polk pulled the Louisiana Convention out of the Episcopal Church of the United States. His friend and former roommate at West Point, Jefferson Davis, prevailed upon Polk to accept a commission in the Confederate States Army. Polk agreed and was commissioned major general commanding Department No. 2 (roughly, the area between the Mississippi River and the Tennessee River) in 1861. He committed one of the great blunders of the Civil War by dispatching troops to occupy Columbus, Kentucky, in September 1861; the Commonwealth of Kentucky had declared its neutrality, but Polk's action ended that neutrality and the state quickly fell under Union control.

He organized the Army of Mississippi and a part of the Army of Tennessee, in which he later served as lieutenant general. Polk designed his own distinctive battle flag for his brigades; a blue field with a red St. George's cross, emblazoned with eleven stars, representing each of the Confederate states.[1] Polk led a corps during the Battle of Shiloh.

Following disagreements with the army's commander, Braxton Bragg, Polk was transferred to Mississippi and later took charge of the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana. Bragg's successor, Joseph E. Johnston, ordered Polk to join his forces with the Army of Tennessee in the Atlanta campaign.

Polk was scouting enemy positions with his staff when he was killed in action by a Federal 3" Hotchkiss shell at Pine Mountain near Marietta, Georgia, on June 14, 1864.[2] Although his record as a field commander was poor, Polk was immensely popular with his troops, and his death was deeply mourned in the Army of Tennessee.

Polk was buried in Augusta, Georgia, and in 1945, his remains and those of his wife were reinterred at Christ Church Cathedral in New Orleans.

[edit] In memoriam

Fort Polk in Louisiana is named in his memory.

[edit] Polk's effects

Polk's sword, which was made in New Orleans and presented to Polk by Bishop Stephen Elliott, was auctioned in Fairfield, Maine, on October 4, 2005, along with personal letters and other items. The sword sold for $77,000 and the entire collection $1.6 million.[3] Another sword attributed to Polk and featuring many unique features including inset and engraved crosses in addition to typical adornment for Confederate Staff and Field Officer Swords, was sold at auction by Heritage Auction Gallery (Dallas, Texas) in December 2007. The Sword was attributed to Polk and featured by William Albaugh in his 1963 book, "A Photographic Supplement of Confederate Swords". The sword is thought to be manufactured by James Conning and Jacob Faser in Mobile, Alabama.

[edit] References

  • Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Polk's Corps flag
  2. ^ Welsh, Jack D. Medical Histories of Confederate Generals. Kent State Press, 1995. ISBN 0873386493
  3. ^ Puget Sound Civil War Round Table article on the auction

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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