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Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies: General Leonidas Polk's Account of the Battle of Shiloh (Illustrated)
Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies: General Leonidas Polk's Account of the Battle of Shiloh (Illustrated)
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Leonidas Polk (April 10, 1806 – June 14, 1864) was a Confederate general in the Civil War who was a second cousin of President James K. Polk and was also a bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana. For that reason, he was known as “The Fighting Bishop.”
Polk was one of the more controversial political generals of the war, elevated to a high military position with no prior combat experience because of his friendship with Confederate President Jefferson Davis. 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.
Polk is mostly remembered for things he’d rather not be, including rash decisions in the West that have been credited for keeping Kentucky on the Union side. On June 14, 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman spotted a cluster of Confederate officers—Polk, Hardee, Johnston, and their staffs—in an exposed area. He pointed them out to Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard, commander of the IV Corps, and ordered him to fire on them. The 5th Indiana Battery, commanded by Capt. Peter Simonson, obeyed the order within minutes. The first round came close and a second even closer, causing the men to disperse. The third shell struck Polk's left arm, went through the chest, and exited his right arm and exploded against a tree; it nearly cut Polk in two.
Polk wrote an account of the Battle of Shiloh that was preserved in The War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. This edition includes maps of the battle and pictures of important military commanders.
Polk was one of the more controversial political generals of the war, elevated to a high military position with no prior combat experience because of his friendship with Confederate President Jefferson Davis. 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.
Polk is mostly remembered for things he’d rather not be, including rash decisions in the West that have been credited for keeping Kentucky on the Union side. On June 14, 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman spotted a cluster of Confederate officers—Polk, Hardee, Johnston, and their staffs—in an exposed area. He pointed them out to Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard, commander of the IV Corps, and ordered him to fire on them. The 5th Indiana Battery, commanded by Capt. Peter Simonson, obeyed the order within minutes. The first round came close and a second even closer, causing the men to disperse. The third shell struck Polk's left arm, went through the chest, and exited his right arm and exploded against a tree; it nearly cut Polk in two.
Polk wrote an account of the Battle of Shiloh that was preserved in The War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. This edition includes maps of the battle and pictures of important military commanders.
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