Polk, Leonidas, 1806-1864

Leonidas Polk was a bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana and a Confederate general.

Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, on April 10, 1806, Polk was raised and educated in North Carolina. He spent two years at the University of North Carolina before transferring to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. While at West Point, Polk joined the Episcopal Church. He graduated from the military academy in July 1827 and received a commission as a U.S. Army artillery officer. Polk resigned from the army in December 1827 and entered the Virginia Theological Seminary. In 1830, shortly before he completed his religious training, he married Frances Ann Devereux. The couple had eight children over the course of their marriage.

In 1831, Pok was ordained as a deacon in the Episcopal Church in 1831. The following year Polk and his wife moved to Maury County, Tennessee. He served as a priest in Columbia. During the 1830s, Polk’s personal finances grew, and he became a prominent slaveowner. By 1840, he owned 111 slaves, and by 1850 he reportedly had 400 enslaved people. In 1841, Polk was elected Bishop of Louisiana. His public standing and great wealth made him a prominent public figure outside of the church. He helped establish the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, intended to be a world-class center of higher learning for the southern, slaveholding states.

In 1861, when the southern states seceded from the Union, Polk oversaw the creation of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America. He wrote to Confederate President Jefferson Davis—a West Point classmate—to offer his services and received a commission as major general in the Confederate Army. Placed in charge of Confederate troops between the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers, Polk tried to draw the neutral state of Kentucky into the Confederacy. He sent Confederate units into that state. The maneuver was a major strategic blunder, as the Kentucky legislature reacted with hostility and requested support from the Union to repel the Confederate “invaders.”

Polk clashed with other Confederate generals, including his superior officer, General Albert Sidney Johnston, and submitted his letter of resignation to Jefferson Davis in November 1861. Davis rejected the resignation and Polk retained a field command. He led troops in battle against Ulysses S. Grant at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861, scoring a moral victory by repulsing Grant’s attack. However, a few days later, Polk was seriously wounded when a cannon nicknamed “Lady Polk,” in honor of his wife, exploded during a firing demonstration. He spent several weeks convalescing.

Polk returned to command in early 1862, leading Confederate soldiers at the battles of Shiloh, Perryville, and Murfreesboro. His performance during these engagements proved his bravery (helping him attain the rank of lieutenant general in October 1862), but also revealed weaknesses in handling logistics and strategy. Most significantly, he continued to engage in rivalries with other officers. He lobbied his friend Jefferson Davis to relieve General Braxton Bragg from command in the west; Bragg in return told Davis that Polk was unwilling to follow orders.

In the face of the high profile dispute between Bragg and Polk, in late 1863 Davis placed Polk in command of Confederate soldiers in Mississippi. The state was already partially under Union control—Vicksburg having been captured by Grant in July 1863, and the capital city of Jackson having been sacked by William Tecumseh Sherman—and Polk struggled to resist Union periodic federal raids against key Mississippi towns. Then, in May 1864, Polk received orders to join General Joseph E. Johnston in northern Georgia to repel Sherman’s advance to Atlanta. Polk was placed in command of the Third Corps of the Army of Tennessee.

On June 14, 1864, near Marietta, Georgia, Polk and several other high ranking Confederate officers found a good vantage point on Pine Mountain to observe Union forces. General Sherman noticed the group of Confederates through field glass. He ordered nearby Union artillery to fire on them. A battery from the First Ohio Light Artillery fired at the Confederate officers. One shell landed close by, startling the Confederates, who then began to disperse. A second shell struck Polk directly, passing through his chest from side-to-side, nearly cutting him in half.

Despite the controversies surrounding Polk as a Confederate general, he was very popular among Confederate troops. His death was widely mourned within the Confederacy. He was initially buried in Saint Paul’s Church in Augusta, Georgia. However, his remains were moved to Christ Church Cathedral in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1945.

(Wikipedia; American Battlefield Trust; N. C. Hughes, Jr., “Polk, Leonidas,” NCPedia)

Leonidas Polk belonged to the following social groups: