his resignation, General Polk was forced to submit, and after a temporary inactivity, was placed in command of the camp of prisoners paroled by Generals Grant and Banks at Vicksburgh and Port Hudson. He continued in charge of these troops from the twentieth of November, 1863, till January, 1864, when he again took the field, being appointed in the place of General Johnston to the temporary command of the rebel department of the Mississippi. When that State was penetrated by General Sherman in February following, General Polk attempted to check the march of the Union army by organizing his command into two separate cavalry departments, of which the northern was to be commanded by General Forrest, with headquarters at Como, and the southern by General Lee, with headquarters at Jackson. This disposition of forces seriously interfered with General Sherman's progress, though it did not prevent the accomplishment of his principal design. The obstacles thrown in his enemy's way, however, led General Polk to claim a victory, and drew from him a warm congratulatory order, dated at Demopolis, Alabama, February twenty-sixth, 1864, in which he thanked his men for their cheerful endurance of fatigue, and their firmness and good conduct throughout the campaign. The officers he commended for their skill and judgment, and declared, in allusion to General Sherman's "defeat and rout," as he termed them, that "never did a grand campaign, inaugurated with such pretensions, terminate more ingloriously." For some months succeeding these events General Polk remained in comparative obscurity, till called upon to meet again on the fields of Western Georgia his old antagonist, General Sherman, who was making rapid strides into the interior of the State. On the afternoon of the fourteenth of June, 1864, General Polk (who commanded one wing of Johnston's army) rode to Pine Mountain in company with Generals Hardee and Johnston, and dismounted for the purpose of making telescopic observations of the Union lines. While so engaged, a projec tile from a Union battery struck him on the left arm, about the elbow, passed through his body, and carried off his right arm, producing instant death. In person, General Polk was of commanding appearance; he was tall and erect, with deep-set eyes of a penetrating gray, nose of Roman build, mouth sunken, lips tightly compressed, and hair slightly tinged with white; his whole countenance and attitude bespeaking the soldier rather than the divine. In language, he was ready, quick, and fluent; in conversation, affable and courteous; but it is to be deeply regretted that his mind, imbued with false and dangerous political principles, should have led him to throw off his Episcopal robes, the emblem of spiritual supervision and watchfulness, and, assuming the uniform of a general, devote to an unhallowed cause the military ardor and education of his youth. ships of that unfortunate expedition. x, of the United ie 24th of July, ury, from which der the direction of Doctor Jared sters, and others scientific attainge, he was transe Fathers of the , 1812, when, in States and Great , young Dix was ordered to Baltities were confined ; and he was, forof the able faculty He was, at that d well acquainted 7 respect he was a n, the secretary of aip in the military was then about to infantry, of which hed with his com pointed adjutant of sy Major Upham, with d in the perils and hard His father having died in camp, in November, 1813, Lieutenant Dix sought |