Leonidas Polk (April 10, 1806 – June 14, 1864) was a Confederate general, 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. He was a planter in Maury County, Tennessee, and a second cousin of President James K. Polk. He resigned his ecclesiastical position to become a major-general in the Confederate States Army, when he was called "Sewanee's Fighting Bishop". His official portrait at the University of the South depicts him as a bishop with his army uniform hanging nearby. He is often erroneously referred to as "Leonidas K. Polk" but he had no middle name and never signed any documents as such.
Polk was one of the war's more notable, yet controversial, political generals. Recognizing his familiarity with the Mississippi Valley, Confederate president Jefferson Davis elevated Polk to a high military position despite his lack of prior combat experience. 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 Meridian campaign, and the Atlanta campaign. He is remembered for his bitter disagreements with his immediate superior, the likewise controversial General Braxton Bragg of the Army of Tennessee, and for his limited success in combat. While serving under the command of General Joseph E. Johnston, he was killed in action in 1864 during the Atlanta campaign.
Early life and education Leonidas Polk was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, to Colonel William and Sarah ( Hawkins) Polk. William was a Revolutionary War veteran and prosperous planter. He was of Scottish and Anglo-Huguenot ancestry. Capitalizing on his position as chief surveyor of the central district of Tennessee, he acquired about of land.Robins, p. 1537.
Polk briefly attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before entering the United States Military Academy at West Point. During his senior year, he left the Scottish Calvinist church. He joined the Episcopal Church and was baptized in the Academy Chapel by Chaplain Charles P. McIlvaine, who later became the Episcopal Bishop of Ohio. Polk had an impressive academic record, excelling in rhetoric and moral philosophy. He graduated eighth of 38 cadets on July 1, 1827, and was appointed a brevet second lieutenant in the artillery.Dupuy, p. 601.
Polk resigned his commission on December 1, 1827, to enter the Virginia Theological Seminary. He became an assistant to Bishop Richard Channing Moore at Monumental Church in Richmond, Virginia. Moore agreed to ordain Polk as a deacon in April 1830; however, on a visit to Raleigh in March, it was discovered that he had never been confirmed as an Episcopalian. To remedy the fact, before his ordination, he was hastily confirmed at St. John's Episcopal Church in Fayetteville, NC. He was then ordained a deacon as planned and a priest the following year. On May 6, 1830, Polk married Frances Ann Devereux, daughter of John Devereux and Frances Pollock; her mother was the granddaughter of Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards. The Polks had eight children who survived to adulthood.Robins, p. 1538.
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 called Ashwood Hall. Polk was the largest slaveowner in the county in 1840, owning 111 slaves. (By 1850, the census recorded that Polk owned 400 slaves, but other estimates are as high as 1000.) He built a family chapel with his four brothers in Maury County, 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 September 1838 and was elected first Bishop of Louisiana in October 1841. In 1848, he performed the marriage of his niece, Mary Bayard Devereux, to Major William John Clarke.
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. (In his August 1856 letter to Bishop Elliott, he expounded on the secessionist motives for his university.) Polk laid and consecrated the cornerstone for the first building on October 9, 1860. Polk's foundational legacy at Sewanee is remembered 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. The title refers to the answer given by 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.
American Civil War Western Department At the outbreak of the Civil War, 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. Although Polk hoped that secession would result in a peaceful separation of the slave states from the United States and suggested that he was reluctant to take up arms personally, he did not hesitate to write to his friend and former classmate at West Point, President Jefferson Davis,McWhiney, p. 205. offering his opinions regarding the defense of the Mississippi Valley. Polk felt that the Southern preparations were seriously deficient and recommended the appointment of Albert Sidney Johnston as commander of the region, declaring that "a better man could not be found for that post." Davis concurred but Johnston was still in California at the time, and so he invited Polk to the Confederate Capitol in Richmond, Virginia, to discuss the Mississippi Valley defenses. Polk dined with Davis on two separate occasions and had discussions with General Robert E. Lee and several cabinet members. Surprisingly, Davis offered Polk the role of interim commander of Department No. 2 (roughly, the area between the Mississippi River and the Tennessee River), which was also known as the Western Department. Polk was hesitant to accept but informed a close friend that "I have therefore told Davis that while I should be glad to be excused from the responsibility, still if he can find no one... better, I will not shrink from it, notwithstanding an unfeigned diffidence of my capacity to do it as it should be done." Polk was commissioned a major general in the Confederate States Army on June 25, 1861, and made his way to Memphis, Tennessee, to assume command.Eicher, pp. 432–33.
Missouri Campaign Polk arrived in Memphis on July 13, 1861, and established his headquarters. In his General Order No. 1 to his troops, he justified the actions of the Confederate government: "We have protested, and do protest, that all we desire is to be let alone, to repose in quietness under our own vine and our own fig tree. We have sought, and only sought, the undisturbed enjoyment of the inherent and indefeasible right of self-government..."Moore, Frank, editor (1862). The Rebellion Record: A Diary of American Events, Volume II. New York: G.P. Putnam, p. 310. Polk's first task was to incorporate the forces of the Provisional Army of Tennessee into the regular army of the Confederacy. As a consequence of this process, the commander of the Tennessee troops, Major General Gideon Johnson Pillow, was demoted to second-in-command with a reduced rank of brigadier general. Pillow was infuriated by both his demotion and replacement by a bishop with no battlefield experience, and would prove himself a petulant and difficult subordinate. In late July, Polk ordered Pillow and 6,000 troops to board transports and steam up the Mississippi River to capture New Madrid, Missouri. The town was situated on a sharp bend of the river and artillery batteries positioned there could obstruct the passage of ships. Having accomplished this, Polk directed Pillow to occupy and fortify Island Number Ten, Tennessee, another strong defensive position, but his subordinate disobeyed the order and diverted the soldiers to eastern Missouri instead. Pillow wanted to use them in a proposed invasion of Missouri. Polk sharply rebuked Pillow and the two generals argued, with one observer noting: "Polk and Pillow are at loggerheads – Polk giving a command and Pillow countermanding it by the same messenger. Something must be done, and that quickly. Pillow, I learn, is acting on his own hook; will not give up his position as a senior general; denies Polk's authority to give him orders... We hope to hear that A.S. Johnston has been assigned to this command. General Polk is a sensible gentleman and will do well if he had proper cooperation." Polk threatened to report Pillow to Richmond, and Pillow eventually fell into line.
Invasion of Kentucky Kentucky, a critical border state and slave state, had declared its neutrality between the United States and the Confederacy at the outbreak of Civil War. On August 28, 1861, Union Major General John C. Frémont issued orders to his subordinate, Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant: "You are instructed to proceed forthwith to Cape Girardeau and assume command of the forces at that place... Colonel Waagner, chief of artillery at Cairo, left Saint Louis last night... to undertake an expedition with two gunboats, under Commander Rodgers, to Belmont, to destroy the fortifications erecting by the rebels, [and] keep possession of that place... It is intended, in connection with all these movements, to occupy Columbus, Kentucky, as soon as possible." The next day, Waagner and his regiment entered the village of Belmont, located across the Mississippi River from Columbus. His men began building fortifications at Belmont, quickly drawing the attention of Confederate forces. Concerned that the Union now threatened Columbus directly, Polk ordered Pillow and his troops to move into Kentucky and seize the towns of Hickman and Columbus. On the evening of September 3, 1861, Pillow's eager soldiers landed at Hickman, and the next day they entered Columbus, welcomed by residents waving Confederate flags.
Some historians contend that Polk committed one of the great blunders of the Civil War by dispatching troops to occupy Columbus. Polk's action prompted the Kentucky legislature to request U.S. aid to "expel the invaders", ensuring U.S. control of Kentucky for the remainder of the war.Woodworth, Jefferson Davis, pp. 34–38; Noe, p. 8; Eicher, p. 432. Thomas L. Connelly wrote that "Polk had made what was probably one of the greatest mistakes of the war." Steven E. Woodworth stated that "it was one of the most decisive catastrophes the Confederacy ever suffered." Nathaniel C. Hughes maintained that it was "a political blunder of the first order." However, other historians believe that the pro-Unionism of the Kentucky legislature and the unwillingness of the people of Kentucky to get involved in the Civil War made Polk's action less disastrous. Robert I. Girardi noted that "plans were in place for a Federal seizure of Columbus on September 5, but it is unlikely that, had the town been taken, the public outcry would have been as loud or the political consequences as great. Kentucky was all but locked up for the Union by the time of Polk's invasion."