Leonidas Polk Family Papers

June 2, 1961 Page Twenty-one

BISHOP-GENERAL...

(Continued from page 19)

In between military engagements, he found time to officiate at the marriage of General John Morgan and to baptize General Hood and General Joe Johnston, occasions possibly unprecedented in military history. His men were fiercely proud of their bishop-turned-general and liked to cite the time when General Cheatham, Polk's division commander rode along their line before a battle with his usual. "Give 'em hell, boys," and General Polk followed close behind echoing the same sentiment with his characteristic Episcopal restraint, "Do as General Cheatham says, boys."

By the battles of Mufreesborough and Chickamauga, Polk was a Lieutenant General who had had horses shot from beneath him and orderlies shot from beside him, but still he only shrugged his shoulders occasionally when bullets whistled too near his ears. The dark hair of his missionary days had turned to silver and he had grown a full gray beard, but a comparison of portraits from both periods show the same penetrating, determined eyes. It was during the Atlanta Campaign of 1864, while he was surveying his troops from the crest of Pine Mountain that a shot from a Union cannon felled the bishop-general. Like a militant Moses atop Mount Nebo, he died intrusting the fate of his beloved country to his Maker; a bloodstained prayer book was found inside his uniform next to his heart. He was every inch an Episcopalian, and beyond that, a Christian; every inch a Confederate, and beyond that, a great American.

General Johnston's Field Orders of June 14th, 1864, announcing the death of General Polk read, His example is before you; his mantle rests with you. _______

BIBLIOGRAPHY The work presented in this article is my own. Factual material concerning incidents in the life of the subject was taken from the books listed below. —Emil T. Lechner.

Andrews, Cutler J. THE NORTH REPORTS THE CIVIL WAR, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1955.

Benet, Stephen Vincent. JOHN BROWN'S BODY, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960.

Dowdey, Clifford. THE LAND THEY FOUGHT FOR, Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1955.

Polk, William M. LEONIDAS POLK, Volumes I and II, New York: Longmans, Green, and Company, 1893.

Pollard, E. A. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ROBERT E. LEE, New York: E. B. Treat and Company, 1871.