General Leonidas Polk, C.S.A., the Fighting Bishop
General Leonidas Polk, C.S.A., the Fighting Bishop

Author: Joseph Howard Parks

Publisher: [Baton Rouge] : Louisiana State University Press

Published: 1962

Total Pages: 438

ISBN-13:

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"This is the first full-length life of General Leonidas Polk, 'Bishop-militant' of the Confederacy, since the biography published by his son more than a half-century ago. It is the story of a man whose deeds of peace were no less than his feats of war. The first Episcopal bishop of Louisiana and the Southwest and founder of the University of the South ('Sewanee'), Polk climaxed his career as one of the foremost figures of the Confederacy. Polk was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1806. He attended West Point, where he became a friend of Jefferson Davis. Turning from the military to the ministry after graduation, Polk won the praise of the Episcopal Church for his abilities in directing and organizing, and was eventually comissioned missionary bishop of the Southwest. However, so great was his belief in the cause of the South -- that each state was independent and could secede if it chose -- that with the approach of the Civil War he announced the secession his diocese, left the embryo university he was building, his Louisiana bishopric and episcopacy, and 'buckled the sword over the gown'. He accepted appointment as major general in the Provisional Army of the Confederacy in late June, 1861, and was assigned to command Department No. 2 with headquarters at Memphis. He soon led his froces into Kentucky and occupied Columbus. When Generals A.S. Johnston and P.G.T Beauregard were assigend to the West, Polk became subordinate to them. He commanded a corps at Shiloh, a wing in the Kentucky campaign, a corps at Stone's River, and a wing at Chickamauga. Disagreement with General Bragg after Chickamauga resulted in Polk's relief from command in the Army of the Tennessee and his transfer to Mississippi. When J.E. Johnston succeeded Bragg in North Georgia, Polk's force was ordered to his assistance. The Bishop-General was killed at Pine Mountain on June 14, 1864"--Jacket.

Leonidas Polk
Leonidas Polk

Author: William Mecklenburg Polk

Publisher: Legare Street Press

Published: 2022-10-27

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781016806527

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Leonidas Polk
Leonidas Polk

Author: Huston Horn

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2019-02-19

Total Pages: 600

ISBN-13: 0700627502

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Leonidas Polk was a graduate of West Point who resigned his commission to enter the Episcopal priesthood as a young man. At first combining parish ministry with cotton farming in Tennessee, Polk subsequently was elected the first bishop of the Louisiana Diocese, whereupon he bought a sugarcane plantation and worked it with several hundred slaves owned by his wife. Then, in the 1850s he was instrumental in the founding of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. When secession led to war he pulled his diocese out of the national church and with other Southern bishops established what they styled the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America. Polk then offered his military services to his friend and former West Point classmate Jefferson Davis and became a major general in the Confederate Army. Polk was one of the more notable, yet controversial, generals of the war. Recognizing his indispensable familiarity with the Mississippi Valley, Confederate president Jefferson Davis commissioned his elevation to a high military position regardless of his lack of prior combat experience. Polk commanded troops in the Battles of Belmont, Shiloh, Perryville, Stones River, Chickamauga, and Meridian as well as several smaller engagements in Georgia leading up to Atlanta. Polk is remembered for his bitter disagreements with his immediate superior, the likewise-controversial General Braxton Bragg of the Army of Tennessee. In 1864, while serving under the command of General Joseph E. Johnston, Polk was killed by Union cannon fire as he observed General Sherman’s emplacements on the hills outside Atlanta.

The Civil War in Louisiana
The Civil War in Louisiana

Author: John D. Winters

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 1991-08-01

Total Pages: 564

ISBN-13: 9780807117255

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This comprehensive history fills an important gap in the story of the Civil War. Too often the war waged west of the Mississippi River has been given short shrift by historians and scholars, who have tended to focus their attention on the great battles east of the river. This book looks in detail at the military operations that occurred in Louisiana—most of them minor skirmishes, but some of them battles and campaigns of major importance. The Civil War in Louisiana begins with the first talk of secession in the state and ends with the last tragic days of the war. John D. Winters describes with great fervor and detail such events as the fall of Confederate New Orleans and the burning of Alexandria. In addition to military action, Winters discusses the political, economic, and social aspects of the war in Louisiana. His accounts of battles and the men who waged them provide a fuller story of Louisiana in the Civil War than has ever before been told.

Doctor Quintard, Chaplain C.S.A. and Second Bishop of Tennessee
Doctor Quintard, Chaplain C.S.A. and Second Bishop of Tennessee

Author: Sam Davis Elliott

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2003-04-01

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 9780807128466

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Trained as a physician and ordained an Episcopal priest, Charles Todd Quintard (1824--1898) was a remarkable man by the standard of any generation. Born, raised, and educated in the North, he migrated to the South to pursue a medical career but was inspired by the bishop of Tennessee to serve the church. When Tennessee seceded from the Union in May 1861, Quintard joined the Confederate 1st Tennessee Infantry Regiment as its chaplain and during the maelstrom of the Civil War kept a diary of his experiences. He later penned a memoir, which was published posthumously in 1905. Sam Davis Elliott combines a previously unpublished portion of the diary with Quintard's memoir in Doctor Quintard, Chaplain C.S.A. and Second Bishop of Tennessee. Quintard offers an unusual perspective and insightful observations gained from ministering to soldiers and civilians as both a priest and a physician. With thoughtful editing and annotating, Quintard's writings provide a valuable window into the high command of the Army of Tennessee at some of its more critical junctures and substantial detail of the last eight months of the war in Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Quintard was present during the early fighting in Virginia, marched into Kentucky with Braxton Bragg, attended to the wounded at Murfreesboro and Chickamauga, witnessed two Confederate retreats from Middle Tennessee, and watched the Federal armies overrun the Deep South in the spring of 1865. He met such diverse personages as Robert E. Lee and Federal Major General James H. Wilson; prayed with Bragg, Leonidas Polk, and John Bell Hood; shared a bed once with Nathan Bedford Forrest; and performed the sad duty of conducting the funerals of Patrick Cleburne and others killed at Franklin, Tennessee. Throughout his military service, he organized hospitals and relief efforts, filled in as a parish priest, and served as chaplain at large of the Army of Tennessee. After the war, Quintard became the prime mover in the revival of Leonidas Polk's dream of an Episcopal Church--sponsored University of the South, and in 1865 he was consecrated bishop of Tennessee, a position he held until his death. These interesting and lively war-year remembrances of one of the Confederacy's most exceptional characters shed new light on the little-known western theater's military, civilian, and religious fronts.

Confederate Generals in the Western Theater, Vol. 3
Confederate Generals in the Western Theater, Vol. 3

Author: Lawrence L. Hewitt

Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press

Published: 2011-05-30

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1572337907

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@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman";}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; line-height: 200%; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Times; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } The American Civil War was won and lost on its western battlefields, but accounts of triumphant Union generals such as Grant and Sherman leave half of the story untold. In the third volume of Confederate Generals in the Western Theater, editors Lawrence Hewitt and Arthur Bergeron bring together ten more never-before-published essays filled with new, penetrating insights into the key question of why the Rebel high command in the West could not match the performance of Robert E. Lee in the East. Showcasing the work of such gifted historians as Wiley Sword, Timothy B. Smith, Rory T. Cornish, and M. Jane Johansson, this book is a compelling addition to an ongoing, collective portrait of generals who occasionally displayed brilliance but were more often handicapped by both geography and their own shortcomings. While the vast, varied terrain of the Western Theater slowed communications and troop transfers and led to the creation of too many military departments that hampered cooperation among commands, even more damaging were the personal qualities of many of the generals. All too frequently, incompetence, egotism, and insubordination were the rule rather than the exception. Some of these men were undone by alcoholism and womanizing, others by politics and nepotism. A few outlived their usefulness; others were killed before they could demonstrate their potential. Together, they destroyed what chance the Confederacy had of winning its independence. Whether adding fresh fuel to the debate over the respective roles of Albert Sidney Johnston and P. G. T. Beauregard at Shiloh or bringing to light such lesser known figures as Joseph Finegan and Hiram Bronson Granbury, this volume, like the ones preceding it, is an exemplary contribution to Civil War scholarship. Lawrence Lee Hewitt is professor of history emeritus at Southeastern Louisiana University. A recipient of SLU’s President’s Award for Excellence in Research and the Charles L. Dufour Award for “outstanding achievements in preserving the heritage of the American Civil War,” he is a former managing editor of North & South. His publications include Port Hudson: Confederate Bastion on the Mississippi. The late Arthur W. Bergeron Jr. was a reference historian with the United States Army Military History Institute and a past president of the Louisiana Historical Association. Among his earlier books were Confederate Mobile and A Thrilling Narrative: The Memoir of a Southern Unionist.

Battle of Stones River
Battle of Stones River

Author: Larry J. Daniel

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2012-11-05

Total Pages: 343

ISBN-13: 0807145165

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Three days of savage and bloody fighting between Confederate and Union troops at Stones River in Middle Tennessee ended with nearly 25,000 casualties but no clear victor. The staggering number of killed or wounded equaled the losses suffered in the well-known Battle of Shiloh. Using previously neglected sources, Larry J. Daniel rescues this important campaign from obscurity. The Battle of Stones River, fought between December 31, 1862, and January 2, 1863, was a tactical draw but proved to be a strategic northern victory. According to Daniel, Union defeats in late 1862—both at Chickasaw Bayou in Mississippi and at Fredericksburg, Virginia—transformed the clash in Tennessee into a much-needed morale booster for the North. Daniel's study of the battle's two antagonists, William S. Rosecrans for the Union Army of the Cumberland and Braxton Bragg for the Confederate Army of Tennessee, presents contrasts in leadership and a series of missteps. Union soldiers liked Rosecrans's personable nature, whereas Bragg acquired a reputation as antisocial and suspicious. Rosecrans had won his previous battle at Corinth, and Bragg had failed at the recent Kentucky Campaign. But despite Rosecrans's apparent advantage, both commanders made serious mistakes. With only a few hundred yards separating the lines, Rosecrans allowed Confederates to surprise and route his right ring. Eventually, Union pressure forced Bragg to launch a division-size attack, a disastrous move. Neither side could claim victory on the battlefield. In the aftermath of the bloody conflict, Union commanders and northern newspapers portrayed the stalemate as a victory, bolstering confidence in the Lincoln administration and dimming the prospects for the "peace wing" of the northern Democratic Party. In the South, the deadlock led to continued bickering in the Confederate western high command and scorn for Braxton Bragg.