Leonidas Polk Remembered

Leonidas Polk was 'fighting bishop of Louisiana'
Jim Bradshaw • jbradshaw@ theadvertiser.com
November 23, 2008

http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081123/NEWS01/811230306

Leonidas K. Polk wore a number of hats, most unusually both that of a Confederate general and an Episcopal bishop, both at the same time.

He consecrated the Church of the Epiphany in New Iberia in 1858, just in time to see it used as a field hospital during the war in which he commanded troops.

He was a native of North Carolina and apparently entertained the idea of a military career as a young man. He entered West Point in 1823, with that in mind, but there met Charles Petit McIlvaine, later Episcopal Bishop of Ohio, but then chaplain to the cadet corps.