Not His Fault: Leonidas Polk Explains September 20th

One would think that in the afterglow of his army's first true battlefield victory, General Braxton Bragg would have proven magnanimous and gracious with his subordinates, but such was not the way in the high command of the Army of Tennessee. Bragg was angry, and demanded answers from his subordinates for their failures to seize opportunities during the campaign. One of the targets of his wrath was his old nemesis Lieutenant General Leonidas Polk. 

    Bragg and Polk had not gotten along since the spring of 1862 and since then Polk expended much energy in behind-the-scenes intriguing in an attempt to secure Bragg's removal from command. Polk relied on his close relationship with President Jefferson Davis to protect him as he utilized his widespread social contacts throughout the army to spread the anti-Bragg gospel. Bragg felt Polk an intractable subordinate upon who commands were taken merely as suggestions for action; to say the relationship between these two was dysfunctional is putting it mildly. 

    The key point of contention after Chickamauga was that Polk's corps did not attack the Federal line at dawn on September 20th as ordered. Colonel George Brent on Bragg's staff sent Polk a note after the battle seeking an explanation and on September 25th, Polk replied with the note below. Polk's answer: it was General D.H. Hill's fault! 

 

Lieutenant General Leonidas Polk led a corps in the Army of Tennessee for most of the war before being killed by an artillery shell June 14, 1864 at Pine Mountain, Georgia. Widely dismissed as incompetent by most historians, Polk proved to be a remarkably popular figure with the troops who respected him as a gentleman and a man of the cloth. 

Headquarters, Polk’s Corps, Missionary Ridge, Tennessee

September 25, 1863

 Colonel,

          In reply to your communication, I would respectfully submit to the commanding general the following statement explanatory of the failure to make an attack upon the enemy as ordered at daylight on the 20th.

          After leaving army headquarters on the night of the 19th when I received a verbal order to attack the enemy at daylight, I rode immediately to my headquarters beyond Alexander’s Bridge where I arrived about 11 p.m. On the way, accompanied by General Breckinridge, I met with a staff officer of Lieutenant General [D.H.] Hill to whom I communicated my orders and from whom I learned that General Hill’s headquarters were at Thedford’s Ford. I asked him to say to General Hill that my headquarters were beyond and near to Alexander’s Bridge and that I desired to see him there.

          On arriving at my headquarters, I issued orders dated 11:30 to Lieutenant General Hill and Major General Cheatham to attack the enemy simultaneously at daylight, General Walker’s division being held in reserve. I also posted two couriers at the bridge to keep up fires and informs persons where my headquarters were. My orders were sent by couriers to the headquarters of the respective generals, General Hill’s at Thedford’s Ford. The couriers to Generals Cheatham and Walker returned promptly. The courier sent to General Hill after searching for the general through the night returned about daylight saying he could not find him. General Hill did not make his appearance at my headquarters.

Lieutenant General Daniel Harvey Hill was an 1842 graduate of West Point noted for his strict discipline and sarcastic sense of humor. A North Carolina native who had served capably if not harmoniously in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, he was sent west after Gettysburg with a promotion to lieutenant general to command a corps in the Army of Tennessee. Polk blamed Hill for the delayed Confederate attack on the morning of September 20th; Bragg didn't accept Polk's explanation and relieved him from command of his corps. After Chickamauga, Hill spoke out against Bragg and soon found himself without a command. 


          Hearing nothing of the attack and not knowing where to find General Hill, I sent staff officers in haste directly to General Breckinridge and Cleburne with information that General Hill could not be found and with orders to make the attack at once and rode myself to the front.

          Shortly afterwards I received in reply to these orders a communication from General Hill stating that his divisions were getting their rations and would not be ready to move for an hour or more and also reporting that Breckinridge’s wagons had been lost between Thedford’s ford and the battlefield. On reaching General Hill’s lines I saw General Cleburne of General Hill’s corps and asked if he had received my order to attack. He said he had received it in the presence of General Hill. I found also that General Hill had delayed his attack in consequence of a misapprehension on his part as to the relation between his line and that of General Cheatham, he supposing that Cheatham’s line was formed, as he said, in his left at nearly right angles to his own. In this he was mistaken; the relations of the line were such as indicated in the accompanying diagram. General Hill mistook the line of one of Cheatham’s reserve brigades (Jackson’s) for that of his front line. The order to attack was then repeated and executed.

 

Respectfully your obedient servant,

L. Polk, Lt. Genl. Comdg

Source:

Letter from Lieutenant General Leonidas Polk to Colonel George William Brent, George William Brent Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University

 


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