Sewanee's On-Line History Museum Welcomes You to the Bishop-General Leonidas Polk Memorial Web Site

Bishop Polk as Leading Founder:

West Point Chapel.

"The beginnings of the idea of a great liberal university can be traced back to Polk's conversion at West Point in 1826 and his interest in the invitation to become a professor..." -Rev. Moultrie Guerry, Leonidas Polk and The University of the South, Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, The Bishop Polk Centennial Number, 1838 - 1938

United States Military Academy.

"I remember few incidents of the following winter, except that I now for the first time heard my husband speak of his wish to establish a university... upon making himself more familiar with the wishes of the people, he found that there was a general desire that their children should spend the years of their college life in a colder climate than Louisiana... This plan was constantly in his thoughts, & he frequently spoke of it to me, & then began to collect materials for future use... but in the spring of 52 the Bishop began to collect information relative to the education systems of England, France & Prussia & to consult with some of his friends as their opinions of the feasibilty- of founding a University of the South... This winter [55] was much occupied in collecting information & in the spring [56], my husband wrote the first pamphlet, and address to the Bishops... on the subject... I shall not forget his expression of amazement, when I suggested to him that he would find his plan oppressed by his northern brethern- 'Impossible- I am sure Bishop Potter (Bishop Potter visited in the spring of 56) will endorse it & do all he can to forward it.' 'The Bishop will promote education but never anything that will enable the South to feel entirely independent in this matter of the north- he will help you in high schools and public schools- but never anything more- & neither will any of your northern brethren, except perhaps Bishop Williams.' My husband found I was right, his plan met not only with not encouragement but decided disapproval. He could not believe till then that the educated mind of the north, while abusing the South for its want of what they were pleased to call education should from interested motive, for even then he was slow to believe that it was hatred of the South that influenced them- object to our youth being provided with means of education at home." -Frances Ann Devereux Polk, "Leonidas Polk, A Memoir Written by His Wife for Their Children," undated

"It is now thirty years since Leonidas Polk, bishop of Louisiana, gave form and substance to the idea, which had previously been thrown out by Bishop Otey, that the Southern church should establish within her own borders a grand andcomprehensive institution of learning, and thus outlined in wise and well considered words of the project of a university of the South." -George Rainsford Fairbanks, "The Plans of the Founders of The University of the South," Appendix to the Digest, Proceedings of the Board of Trustees, 1886, Resolution No. 67, in Fairbank's HISTORY, 1905

Bishop-General Leonidas Polk, Jessie Ball duPont Library,
THE UNIVERISTY OF THE SOUTH.

"The University of the South, by common consent, owes its inception to the great bishop of Louisiana, Leonidas Polk, who took the initial steps for its establishment in 1856... Nothing certainly could be grander or nobler than this comprehensive ideal of a church university. One perceives at once in these few well chosen words the clear, splendid ideal which Bishop Polk had in mind, and which he aimed to have accomplished... Such is a brief outline of Bishop Polk's plan for the inauguration of a great church university for the South. ...[A]nd Polk, the moving spirit of the enterprise... It was the very breadth and largeness of his plans, the grandeur of the proposed University, the scale upon which it was to be carried out, made men feel that it was not tens or hundreds, but thousands, that were needed to be given... Bishop Polk had not only the clear conception of the work, but the knowledge of human nature, the will power and patient and well-ordered enthusiasm, allied with prudence, to know how to reach the heart, the understanding and the coffers of the people." -George Rainsford. Fairbanks, HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH, 1905

"Of this new and vaster undertaking, we may read the following interesting comments which give credit directly to Leonidas Polk. Of the greatest interest, perhaps, is the address of Bishop Otey [first Bishop of Tennessee] to his diocesan convention in 1857. After reviewing the great need of education and reminding his people how 'Time and again attention has been earnestly called to this subject by your bishop from the beginning of his episcopate': he went on to say: 'A movement has been made outside of the diocese in which the Bishop of Louisiana, whom we all know and honor for his enlarged and enlightened vision, has taken the lead, which looks to the establishment and endowment of an institution on the most liberal scale.' '' -Rev. Moultrie Guerry, Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 1938

"It is known to the public that during the last year the Rt. Rev. Bishop Polk, of Louisiana, invited the attention of his brethren in the Episcopal Office, to the urgent need, in the Southern States, of a University of high order, under the distinct sanction of the Christian faith." -Proceedings of a Convention of the Trustees of a Proposed University for the Southern States, July 4 - 6, 1857, The University of the South Papers, Series A, No. 1, REPRINTS OF THE DOCUMENTS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH, PRIOR TO 1860, edited by the Rev. Telfair Hodgson, D.D., Vice-Chancellor, 1888

"The scheme of this University attracted much attention, North and South, before the civil war [sic]. It was propounded by the Bishop of Louisiana, Leonidas Polk, in 1857 [1856], and received the hearty assent of the Bishops of the ten Southern Episcopal dioceses, to whom it was addressed." -The University of the South Papers, Series B,. No.7, History and Location, 1883

"It was at first a conflict of ideas, and ideas could only be met with ideas. The Bishops of the Southern diocese, Bishop Polk taking the lead, together with divers of the clergy and laity, set themselves to the establishment of a seat of learning, to be called the "University of the South," which, it was hoped, in time, might take the rank with the universities of the Old World, and become the great educator of Southern youth." -Rt. Rev. Richard H. Wilmer, THE RECENT PAST- FROM A SOUTHERN STANDPOINT, BISHOP WILMER'S REMINISCENCES, Dedicated to The Cause of Truth, Right, and Peace, 1887, 1900

"These were the active instruments in establishing the University of the South. Its foundation is undoubtedly due to the Right Reverend Leonidas Polk, Bishop of Louisiana." -Confederate Veteran Magazine, Vol. III, No. 2, February, 1895

"At the outbreak of the war he joined the supporters of what he believed to be a sacred cause, as nearly a hundred years before, other ministers had flocked to Revolutionary standards. But before relinquishing his diocesan work he had planted the Episcopal church firmly in the Southwest, and had planned out and laid the corner stone of [T]he University of the South, at Sewanee, Tennessee." -Prominent American Families, Munsey's Magazine, 1897

"Bishop Polk conceived the idea of the Southern University at Sewanee, Tenn. He had the vision of a great Christian university for the youth of the South." -Mrs. C.W. McMahon, Confederate Veteran Magazine, Nineteenth Year, Number Twelve, December, 1911

"Among them Leonidas Polk, Bishop of Louisiana, was the leader... The cornerstone for the first building of instruction was laid with appropriate ceremonies by Bishop Polk in October, 1860. Six months later, when the Civil War broke out, Bishop Polk took up arms again in defense of the seceded states of the South, became General Polk of the Confederate army and was killed by a cannon ball [shell] at the Battle of Pine Mountain." -Charles Edward Thomas, The University of the South, SEWANEE, "The Oxford of America", 1932

"For a long time Polk had desired to establish a University which would be in the South and for the South... From his studies, his travels, and due perhaps to his own technical education at West Point, Polk saw the need for a great University in America, particularly one which would serve the South. He wished for no purely sectional institution but he felt that it would be an advantage if the heads of such an institution understood the peculiar Southern psychology... Other ideas too were stirring in Polk's mind as he envisaged the University of the South... Continuing his interest in the University, Polk searched diligently for a suitable location... The cornerstone was laid at Sewanee and the school was named the University of the South." -William Baumer, Jr., NOT ALL WARRIORS, Portraits of 19th Century West Pointers Who Gained Fame In Other Than Military Fields, 1941

"It is difficult to say just when the idea began to germinate in Polk's mind, but by July 1, 1856, he had evolved a scheme to unite all of the dioceses of the deep South in one vast educational enterprise. He had from time to time, in company with Bishop Otey or alone, attempted to establish various theological schools that would serve the particular needs of a Southern diocese- a school to furnish a native ministry which would understand the Southern mind and the problems which beset it... Therefore, if the youth of the South could be somehow brought under the influence of Protestant Episcopal teachings- say at some great university- then the business of spreading the Gospel would be greatly accelerated... Polk broached his plan in a letter addressed to the several bishops of the Southern states written July 1, 1856..." -Vera Lea Dugas, "The Ante-Bellum Career of Leonidas Polk," The Louisiana Historical Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 2, April, 1949

"He took the initiative in a movement to establish an Episcopal University in the South, where its aristocratic youth might be better taught and trained for responsibility as masters to a subject race. As his grandfather founded a university before him, Bishop Polk laid the cornerstone for the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee, in 1860, the reality of his dreams and labors 'for a home of all the arts and sciences and of literary culture in the Southern states' " -Clayton Rand, STARS IN THEIR EYES, Dreamers & Builders in Louisiana, 1953

"The Right Reverend Leonidas Polk, first Bishop of Arkansas and (later) of Louisiana, was the second Chancellor and was principally responsible for the University's location, its endowment, and its constitution... He conceived a real university in the modern sense with graduate work and fellowships. This lieutenant general, this pioneer bishop, may well be remembered in distant days as a genius in American education." -Arthur Ben Chitty, RECONSTRUCTION AT SEWANEE 1857-1872, 1954

"...As the individual dioceses were too weak to establish institutions of the best type, what he proposed was co-sponsorship of a single institution that could leave nothing to be desired... Thus did Bishop Polk outline his dream of what was to become [T]he University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee, sponsored today by 22 Southern dioceses... The plan outlined by Bishop Polk was adopted by the Southern bishops at the Triennial of 1856 and they issued on October 23 a manifesto, written by Bishop Otey but essentially the same document as that prepared by Bishop Polk." -Hodding Carter and Betty Werlein. Carter, SO GREAT A GOOD, A History of the Episcopal Church in Louisiana and the Christ Church Cathedral, 1805-1955, 1955

"...and in their center, Leonidas Polk, Missionary Bishop of Arkansas and the Southwest, first Foreign Missionary Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church [Republic of Texas], first Bishop of Louisiana, and, in the words of Bishop Quintard, 'the projector, originator and real founder of [T]he University of the South.' '' -The Right Reverend Jonathan Goodhue Sherman, S.T.D., Leonidas Polk, Father and First Founder of The University of the South, Sesqui-Centennial Address [150th anniversary of Leonidas Polk's birth], at the dinner of The John H. P. Hodgson Chapter, The Associated Alumni of The University of the South, at The Harvard Club of New York City, April 10, 1956

"It was [Polk] who came to conceive, not a joint effort of three dioceses to provide training for teachers and priests, but a collaboration of all Episcopalians from Texas to the Atlantic Ocean and from North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas to the Gulf of Mexico to establish a true university on a scale comparable to the best in any Country... No man, as far as I am aware, ever before had dared to imagine that a complete university in a complete academic community could be improvised at will in a relatively short period of time...others have been created overnight, but it was Polk who first proposed to do this, and truly the idea was inspiring." -Edward McCrady, M.S., Ph.D., LL.D., Sewanee "Domain of The University of the South" (1858 -1958), and Address to the Newcomen Society, 1958

"Sewanee began in 1856 when Leonidas Polk, writing letters to fellow bishops in the Episcopal Church in the South, invited them to join in an effort to establish a university... To establish such an institution had been Bishop Polk's dream for a number of years. Having studied institutions both in America and in Europe, he thought the time right for his Church to support such a regional project." -1963 CAP AND GOWN

"No more admirable leader of this church, according to Southern standards, existed at the close of the ante-bellum period than the Bishop of Louisiana, Leonidas Polk... Bishop Polk resolved to establish an educational institution that would go far beyond being a church college and become a truly regional university... The founder planned to establish [T]he University of the South on the solid rock of conservatism... The University of the South, he decided, should be different from the bourgeois schools and colleges of the Northern states; it should incorporate an aristocratic element by training the sons of planters to be Southern gentlemen." -Clement Eaton, THE MIND OF OLD SOUTH, 1964, 1967

"The enveloping green mountains... a lone mind... the whisper of a quill across the page... the fusing of body and spirit in Philadelphia..." -CAP AND GOWN, 1971

"Two religious schools existed as major institutional shrines to the Lost Cause. The first was [T]he University of the South, located like an isolated retreat in the mountains at Sewanee, Tennessee, sometimes called the "stronghold of the Southern aristocracy." Leonidas Polk, the Episcopal bishop of the Southwest, issued a call in 1856 for the foundingof a church school to be supported by the ten Southern dioceses... From its inception in the sectionally divided 1850s, the institution had sectional dimensions. One minister, the Reverend John Fulton, later remembered that Polk's plan for the school had a direct 'relation to his political principles.' The chief historian of the University, Arthur Ben Chitty, wrote that much of the support for it 'had been for the glory of the South. The idea was a natural concomitant of the growing Southern self-consciousness of the 1850s.' Bishop Richard Wilmer observed that the sectional conflict of the 1850s was 'at first a conflict of ideas, and ideas could only be met with ideas.' Sewanee was to 'educate in harmony Southern ideas.' " -Charles Reagan Wilson, BAPTIZED IN BLOOD, The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865 - 1920, 1980

"It was Polk, however, who made the initial move which resulted in the establishment of [T]he University of the South." -Donald Smith Armentrout, JAMES HERVEY OTEY, First Episcopal Bishop of Tennessee, 1984

"...[Polk] was avidly pursuing his scheme of creating a "University of the South," free from all taint of northern thought, where southern young men of breeding could receive proper aristocratic education. Polk believed this was a job for Episcopalians... Polk pushed the idea energetically, and in the summer of 1857 an organizational meeting was held at a scenic southern location with the descriptive name of Lookout Mountain. Making use of the commanding view from the mountaintop, the bishop surveyed the surrounding country for a good location for the school." -Steven E. Woodworth, JEFFERSON DAVIS AND HIS GENERALS, 1990

"The war interrupted the plans for the school's opening, which did not occur until 1868, after the deaths of both [George Seth] Guion and Bishop Polk, who was the main founder of the University of the South." -David D. Plater, "THE REMAKABLEY NEAT CHURCH IN THE VILLAGE OF THIBODAUX, AN ANTEBELLUM HISTORY OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, 1994

"It had long been the dream of Bishop Leonidas Polk that a great university should be established in the mountains of East Tennessee. He prepared a 4,000 word letter on July 1, 1856, to his brother bishops in the South and Southwest... Bishop-General Polk had predicted that The University of the South would create its own society, and it did just that." -John M. Wilson, I HAVE LOOKED DEATH IN THE FACE, Biography of William Porcher DuBose, 1996

"Founded in 1857, largely at the instigation of Leonidas Polk, it lost both its endowment and its original mission in the Civil War. It has survived as a small, elite college for men (coed after 1969), with an Anglican connection and a Tory ambience." -John Shelton Reed and Dale Volberg Reed, 1001 THINGS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE SOUTH, 1996

"Southwest of Monteagle lies the Domain of the University of the South, and Episcopal school founded in 1857. The school was the idea of Leonidas Polk, Episcopal bishop of Arkansas and Louisiana, who dreamed of founding a school in the South to take a place among the large universities of Europe and North America." -Russ Manning, THE HISTORIC CUMBERLAND PLATEAU, An Explorer's Guide, Second Edition, Outdoor Tennessee Series, 1999

"The University of the South was the brainchild of Leonidas Polk, Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana and a General in the Confederate army. Bishop Polk was the cousin of President James K. Polk. He conceived the idea for a school that would offer education and religious training for sons of Southern gentry throughout the South. Leonidas Polk became the school’s Chancellor and the position of Vice-Chancellor was offered to, but refused by, another prominent Episcopalian, Robert E. Lee." -Gail Jarvis, "The Univeristy of the S**th," Lew Rockwell .com, May 28, 2004

"In the years just prior to the War Between the States, Polk worked tirelessly for the establishment of what would become the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. He first set forth his vision in an 1856 letter to fellow bishops. The time had come, in his view, to raise up a great, Christian, conservative university to educate the youth of the South." -Walter Brian Cisco, "The Fighting Bishop," Southern Partisan, Volume XXIV, No.2, February 2005

"In 1856, he wrote to eight Southern bishops, suggesting the joint creation of an institution for higher education and training for the priesthood. Even before the Civil War, he recognized the differences, primarily slavery, between North and South, and believed that the South needed its own educational institutions. His vision would become The University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee." -Ann Sale, "Leonidas Polk: Planter, Pastor, Soldier, Educator, Visionary, Missionary," Churchwork, Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana, Vol. 55, No.5, June 2005

"And so in discussions about Polk, we can see the cultural war over the memory of the Civil War in miniature. Polk was responsible for building the University, with much help and sacrifice by the Episcopal church; generations of its alumni have enriched the nation. Polk is, however, seen by some people as a man who fought to maintain the institution of slavery. How can the University reconcile those competing interpretations?" -Alfred Brophy, School of Law, the University of Alabama, "Memory on the Sewanee Campus," ConcurringOpinions.com, November 30, 2005

"Tradition is alive and well an revered at University of the South, known simply as Sewanee after the school owned village where it's located. Leonidas Polk, an Episcopal bishop and later Confederate general, founded the school in 1857, envisioning it as a distinguished center of learning in the region." -Edward B. Fiske, FISKE GUIDE TO THE COLLEGES, 2006

"In 1832, an idea for a school began at the same time to form independently in the minds of two Episcopal priests, James H. Otey and Leonidas Polk- the West Point graduate who would earn fame as a Confederate general known as the 'Fighting Bishop.' Otey at the time was soon to become the firest Episcopal Bishop of Tennessee, and Polk was a newly ordained priest traveling through Europe and England inspecting their universities. . . . So in 1856, at Polk's insistence, 10 Episcopal diocese- Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas- met and agreed to cooperate in the creation of a single university." -Fred Brown, "Sewanee: Founded on Faith," Civil War Courier, Volume 21, Issue 1, January 2006

"Polk and Elliott had joined together in the late 1850's with other Southern Episcopal Bishops in the establishment of The University of the South. While owner of the sword and in office as Chancellor of that University, he was killed in battle. . . . Even though Bishop General Polk's life was lost during the war, his loyal vision of a Southern education was not, nor his blessed sword." -Dorothy Snow, Civil War Courier, Volume 21, Issue 1, January 2006