SAVE THE DATE NOW:

April 22, 2006

THE LEONIDAS POLK REGISTRY RESEARCH PROJECT

hosts the

Celebration of the 200th birthday anniversary

of

BISHOP-GENERAL LEONIDAS POLK

April 10, 1806 - June 14, 1864

"The Founding Father of THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH"

on the Domain at Sewanee, Tennessee

Antoine's Restaurant

12 noon CST

New Orleans, Louisiana

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"It is to be hoped that Tennessee may be able to do something to perpetuate the influence of this able Christian worker and soldier, and the things for which he stood... Bishop Polk's chief aim was to serve the Lord..."  -William Bruce Turner, HISTORY OF MAURY COUNTY, TENNESSEE, 1955

"History is the memory of time, the life of the dead, and the happiness of the living."  -Captain John Smith, in 1001 THINGS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE SOUTH, John Shelton Reed and Dale Volberg Reed, 1996

Prophetically published on the Domain of THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH in the month of Leonidas Polk's 199th birthday:

Bishop Leonidas Polk's Birthday

By T. Snowden III, as published in The Sewanee Purple, the student newspaper of THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH, Easter Semester, Vol. CLXXXIV, April 2005:

On April 10, 1806, Bishop-General Leonidas Polk was born in Raleigh, North Carolina. Bishop Polk was the "projector, originator and real founder of the University of the South" at Sewanee, Tennessee. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1827. Afterward he resigned his commission to enter the ministry. Ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church in 1830, he went on to be the missionary bishop of the Southwest and first Bishop of Louisiana.

In 1856 he wrote a letter to southern Bishops proposing the establishment of a University "for the advancement of learning... and for the propagation of the Gospel." And in 1860 he laid the cornerstone of the school dedicated to "the cultivation of true Religion, learning and virtue, that thereby God may be glorified, and the happiness of man be advanced." The Polk family home, burned during the War, was situated where Rebel's Rest now stands.

When the War between the States began, fellow West Point Cadet and friend, President Jefferson Davis, called on him to serve in the Confederate States Army. Committed, in his own words, to "rolling back the desolating tide of invasion," the Bishop agreed to serve the cause in order to secure "civil liberty and the preservation of the purity of religious truth." He commanded the 1st Corps of the Army of Tennessee and defeated Union General Grant at the Battle of Belmont, Missouri. He was involved in every major battle in the Tennessee campaign, including Shiloh, where he personally led four charges. The silk Confederate flag designed by General Polk for his army, and flown by a Florida regiment, is on display in the library. It formerly hung in the University chapel.

"With the Holy Bible in one hand and his sword in the other, he was a good influence on the rank and file throughout the conflict. While other generals waged war to preserve the Constitution, the 'Fighting Bishop' was engaged in a holy crusade." (Clayton Rand, Sons of the South)

His tragic death occurred during the Atlanta campaign on Pine Mountain, Georgia (near Marietta) while he and Generals Johnston and Hardee were on reconnaissance.

In his Sesqui-Centennial address to the Associated Alumni in 1956, Suffragan Bishop Jonathan Sherman of Long Island said: "As long as there are those who teach and those who learn on the mountain-top at Sewanee, the name Leonidas Polk will be remembered among those choice vessels of God's grace, the lights of the world in their several generations, for whom the Church will ever yield to Almighty God most high praise and most hearty thanks."

Illustration: Sword Over the Gown- "Leonidas Polk- the fighting bishop and founder of Sewanee"