By David Paulsen
Posted 3 hours ago
The memorial honoring Bishop Leonidas Polk is visible on the wall to the left of the altar behind the choir at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Augusta, Georgia. Photo: St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
[Episcopal News Service] A memorial plaque on the back wall near the choir and to the left of the altar at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Augusta, Georgia, has long paid tribute to a controversial Episcopalian who likely never set foot in the church.
Leonidas Polk was an Episcopal bishop, but not from Georgia. He was a general in the Confederate Army, killed by Union artillery fire in fighting northwest of Atlanta in Cobb County, nowhere near Augusta. St. Paul’s hosted his funeral in 1864 because the ongoing war prevented the return of his body to Louisiana. Polk, buried for nearly 80 years at St. Paul’s, isn’t buried there anymore; in 1945, his remains were exhumed and reinterred at Christ Church Cathedral in New Orleans, the seat of Polk�