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Leonidas Polk (April 10, 1806 – June 14, 1864) was a Confederate general in the American Civil War who was once a planter in Maury County, Tennessee, and a second cousin of President James K. Polk. He also served as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana and was for that reason known as ''Sewanee's Fighting Bishop''. He is often erroneously named "Leonidas K. Polk." He had no middle name and never signed any documents as such. The errant "K" was derived from his listing in the post-bellum New Orleans press as "Polk, Leon. (k)" for killed in action. Polk was one of the more successful, yet controversial political 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 lacking prior combat experience. He fought as a corps commander in many of the major battles of the Western Theater, but is remembered more for his bitter disagreements with his immediate superior, Gen. Braxton Bragg of the Army of Tennessee, than for his success in combat. While serving under the command of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, he was killed in action in 1864 during the Atlanta Campaign. ==Early life== Polk was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, to Sarah (Hawkins) Polk and Colonel William Polk, a Revolutionary War veteran and prosperous planter. He was of Scottish and Scotch-Irish ancestry. Capitalizing on his position as chief surveyor of the central district of Tennessee, William was able to acquire about of land.〔Robins, p. 1537.〕 Polk attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill briefly before entering the United States Military Academy at West Point. During his senior year, he joined the Episcopal Church, 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, so that he could enter the Virginia Theological Seminary. He became an assistant to Bishop Richard Channing Moore at Monumental Church in Richmond, Virginia. Moore ordained Polk as a deacon in April 1830 and a priest the following year.〔 On May 6, 1830, Polk married Frances Ann Deveraux, daughter of John and Frances Pollock Devereaux; her mother was the granddaughter of Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards. The Polks had eight children.〔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 he called "Ashwood Hall". Polk was the largest slaveholder in Maury County, Tennessee, in 1840, with 111 slaves. (By 1850, census records state that Polk owned 215 slaves, but other estimates are as high as 400.)〔 With his four brothers in Maury County, he built a family chapel, St. John's Church, at Ashwood.〔St. John's later became famous for its connection to Confederate general Patrick Cleburne, who remarked that it would be "worth dying to be buried in a place so beautiful." Two days later he was killed at the Battle of Franklin and was buried for six years at St. John's.〕 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 Bishop of Louisiana in October 1841.〔 Bishop Polk was the leading founder of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, which he envisioned as a national university for the South 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 always 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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Leonidas Polk」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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