King Polk was a Congressman. Bishop Polk's son, William Mecklenburg Polk, was a physician and a Confederate captain, who later served as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World War I. He later authored his most flattering biography. William M. Polk's son, Frank Polk, served as counselor to the U.S. Department of State through World War I and later became the first Under Secretary of State. A brother of Bishop Polk, Lucius Junius Polk, married a grand-niece of Rachel Jackson, wife of U.S. President Andrew Jackson. U.S. President James K. Polk was Bishop Polk's first cousin twice removed. Polk's portrait, done by Cornelius Hankins, was donated to Christ Church Cathedral in Nashville, Tennessee, by his grandson W. Dudley Gate, in 1963. Military historian Steven E. Woodworth described the shell that killed Polk as "one of the worst shots fired for the Union cause during the entire course of the war", as Polk's incompetence made him far more valuable alive than dead: "Polk's incompetence and willful disobedience had consistently hamstrung Confederate operations west of the Appalachians, while his special relationship with the president made the bishop-general untouchable." See also List of Confederate States Army generals List of people from Raleigh, North Carolina Notes References Connelly, Thomas L. Autumn of Glory: The Army of Tennessee 1862–1865. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971. . Dupuy, Trevor N., Curt Johnson, and David L. Bongard. The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. . Eicher, John H., and David J. Eicher. Civil War High Commands. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001. . Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative. Vol. 3, Red River to Appomattox. New York: Random House, 1974. . Hallock, Judith Lee. Braxton Bragg and Confederate Defeat. Vol. 2. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991. . McDonough, James Lee. Chattanooga—A Death Grip on the Confederacy. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984. . McMurry, Richard M. Atlanta 1864: Last Chance for the Confederacy. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. . McWhiney, Grady. Braxton Bragg and Confederate Defeat. Vol. 1. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969 (additional material, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991). . Noe, Kenneth W. Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001. . Parks, Joseph H. General Leonidas Polk, C.S.A.: The Fighting Bishop (Southern Biography Series). Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992. . Robins, Glenn. "Leonidas Polk." In Encyclopedia of the