Leonidas Polk Family Papers

From THE POINTER File: Leonidas Polk official publication of the cadets at West Point. June 2, 1961

{illustration of a draped Confederate flag with a bible, a cross, and a flat-topped & flat-brimmed hat of the type associated with ministers arranged atop the draped fabric on the left and a sabre, a Cavalry hat with plume arranged on the right}

BISHOP-GENERAL OF THE CONFEDERACY

history By E. T. LECHNER

the rousing tale of leonidas polk, the minister-in-arms, in the story which took first place in the 1961 association of graduates essay contest.

. . . at the landing, are thirty-thee thousand men, Some fairly seasoned in war, but many green sticks, Grant's Army of the Tennessee. Down the river Don Carlos Buell has twenty-five thousand more In the Army of the Ohio. Opposing these Are Albert Sidney Johnston and Beauregard With something like forty thousand butternut fighters Including a martial bishop. ___

The final phrase of Benet's verse strikes a strange note. A bishop in the battlefield? How come a clergyman to the blood-soaked fields of Shiloh? Who was this figure, called by his men simply "the Bishop?" It was he who, when the massed forces of a divided country met at Shiloh, advanced with sword drawn to lead personally his gray-clad followers in four gallant charges against the Federal blue. It is hard to make "Reverend" rhyme with "General", yet the man spoken of in the verse did that - and more. He was a leader of men in two spheres of endeavor, both position demanding exacting qualities of leadership. Not only did he succeed as a soldier and as a minister, but he excelled as both. A graduate of the United States Military Academy and an Alexandria, Virginia seminary, his dual life included service as Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana and Confederate Lieutenant General. His name was Leonidas Polk.

Polk's father, a country gentleman of North Carolina, had been an officer in the Continental Army and a battle companion of Andrew Jackson. Leonidas determined to follow his father's example and began his Army career as a cadet at the Military Academy. His years at West Point were spent under the direct eye of Superindendent Thayer. Young Polk was quick to experience at the Academy what new cadets have confronted for a centery and a half. With the careful tone of reserve which was to prove so characteristic of his later life he wrote to his father,

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.