49 Facts About Leonidas Polk

Lieutenant-General Leonidas Polk was a bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana and founder of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America, which separated from the Episcopal Church of the United States of America.

Leonidas Polk was a planter in Maury County, Tennessee, and a second cousin of President James K Polk.

Leonidas Polk resigned his ecclesiastical position to become a major-general in the Confederate States Army, when he was called "Sewanee's Fighting Bishop".

Leonidas Polk is often erroneously referred to as "Leonidas K Polk," but he had no middle name and never signed any documents as such.

Leonidas Polk commanded troops in the Battle of Shiloh, the Battle of Perryville, the Battle of Stones River, the Tullahoma Campaign, the Battle of Chickamauga, the Chattanooga Campaign, and the Atlanta Campaign.

Leonidas Polk is remembered for his bitter disagreements with his immediate superior, the likewise-controversial General Braxton Bragg of the Army of Tennessee, and for his general lack of success in combat.

Leonidas Polk was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, to Colonel William and Sarah Polk.

Leonidas Polk briefly attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before entering the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Leonidas Polk had an impressive academic record, excelling in rhetoric and moral philosophy.

Leonidas Polk graduated eighth of 38 cadets on July 1,1827, and was appointed a brevet second lieutenant in the artillery.

Leonidas Polk resigned his commission on December 1,1827, to enter the Virginia Theological Seminary.

Leonidas Polk became an assistant to Bishop Richard Channing Moore at Monumental Church in Richmond, Virginia.

Leonidas Polk was then ordained a deacon as planned and a priest the following year.

On May 6,1830, Leonidas Polk married Frances Ann Devereux, daughter of John Devereux and Frances Pollock; her mother was the granddaughter of Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards.

In 1832, Leonidas Polk moved his family to the vast Leonidas Polk Rattle and Snap tract in Maury County, Tennessee, and constructed a massive Greek Revival home called Ashwood Hall.

Leonidas Polk was the largest enslaver in the county in 1840, enslaving 111 people.

Leonidas Polk served as priest of St Peter's Church in Columbia, Tennessee.

Leonidas Polk was appointed Missionary Bishop of the Southwest in September 1838 and was elected first Bishop of Louisiana in October 1841.

Leonidas Polk was the leading founder of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, which he envisioned as a national university for the Southern United States and a New World equivalent to Oxford and Cambridge, both in England.

The title refers to the answer given by Leonidas Polk "when asked in Richmond if he was putting off the gown of an Episcopal bishop to take up the sword of a Confederate general, to which he replied, 'No, Sir, I am buckling the sword over the gown,'" indicating that he saw it was his duty as a bishop to take up arms.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Leonidas Polk pulled the Louisiana Convention out of the Episcopal Church of the United States to form the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America.

Leonidas Polk was commissioned a major general on June 25,1861, and ordered to command Department No 2.

Leonidas Polk committed one of the great blunders of the Civil War by dispatching troops to occupy Columbus, Kentucky, in September 1861; the governor of the critical border state of Kentucky had declared its neutrality between the United States and the Confederacy.

Still, Leonidas Polk's action prompted the Kentucky legislature to request US aid to "expel the invaders", ensuring US control of Kentucky for the remainder of the war.

Leonidas Polk's command saw its first combat on November 7,1861: the minor Battle of Belmont between troops under Pillow and US soldiers under Brig.

The explosion stunned Leonidas Polk and blew his clothes off, requiring several weeks of recovery.

Besides being a basically incompetent general, Leonidas Polk had the added fault of hating to take orders.

Leonidas Polk continued in that role for much of the year under Beauregard, who assumed command following the death of Johnston at Shiloh and then under Gen.

Edmund Kirby Smith, Leonidas Polk was in temporary command of the Army of Mississippi while Bragg visited Frankfort to preside over the inauguration of a Confederate governor for the state.

Leonidas Polk disregarded an order from Bragg to attack the flank of the pursuing US army near Frankfort.

Unfortunately for Bragg and for the Confederacy as a whole, Leonidas Polk remained a great favorite of Jefferson Davis despite carefully couched hints from Bragg, which protected the irritatingly self-righteous Leonidas Polk from the increasingly sycophantic Bragg and made his appointment to wing command a political necessity.

Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio, but Leonidas Polk was reluctant to attack the small portion of Buell's army that faced him until Bragg arrived at the battlefield.

One enduring legend of the Civil War is when Leonidas Polk observed his subordinate, Maj.

Leonidas Polk was promoted to lieutenant general on October 11,1862, with date of rank of October 10.

Leonidas Polk became the second most senior Confederate of that rank during the war, behind James Longstreet.

In November, the Army of Mississippi was renamed the Army of Tennessee and Leonidas Polk commanded its First Corps until September 1863.

Leonidas Polk fought under Bragg at the Battle of Stones River in late 1862.

Two days later, Leonidas Polk disregarded orders from Bragg to attack another isolated corps, the second failed opportunity.

At the Battle of Chickamauga, Leonidas Polk was given command of the Right Wing and the responsibility for initiating the attack on the second day of battle.

Leonidas Polk failed to inform his subordinates of the plan, and his wing was late in attacking, allowing the US defenders time to complete their field fortifications.

Leonidas Polk will convince himself his own are better and follow them without reflecting on the consequences.

Leonidas Polk's command remained commonly known as the "Army of Mississippi".

Leonidas Polk brought more than 20,000 men with him to Georgia.

On June 14,1864, Leonidas Polk was scouting enemy positions near Marietta, Georgia, with his staff when he was killed in action by a US 3-inch shell at Pine Mountain.

The third shell struck Leonidas Polk's left arm, went through his chest, and exited, hitting his right arm, then exploded against a tree; it nearly cut Leonidas Polk in two.

Leonidas Polk was the army's most beloved general, a representative of that intangible identification of the army with Tennessee.

Leonidas Polk was buried in a location under the present-day altar.

Lucius E Polk's son Rufus King Polk was a Congressman.

US President James K Polk was Polk's first cousin twice removed.