Leonidas Polk (10 April 1806 – 14 June 1864) was a Lieutenant-General of the Confederate States Army and commander of the I Corps of the Army of Tennessee during the American Civil War. Polk was the second cousin of President James K. Polk and a classmate of Jefferson Davis, who gave him a high command despite his lack of combat experience. On 14 June 1864, Polk was killed at the Battle of Marietta in Georgia.
Biography[]
Leonidas Polk was born in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1806, the son of Continental Army officer William Polk and the cousin of President of the United States James K. Polk. Polk and his family moved to Tennessee, and Polk became a planter in Maury County, as well as Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana. He graduated from West Point in 1827 and befriended Jefferson Davis, and he offered his services to the Confederate States of America when the American Civil War broke out in 1861. Despite having no combat experience, Polk was commissioned with a high rank, and he commanded troops in the Western Theater of the war. Polk commanded the I Corps of the Army of Tennessee under Braxton Bragg, and the two would become enemies due to Polk's repeated battlefield failures. On 14 June 1864, during the Battle of Marietta, Polk was nearly cut in two by a Union shell on Pine Mountain, and killed.
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