William Polk

American Revolutionary War At the onset of military action between the American colonies and Great Britain, William Polk left Queens College (an unrelated precursor of the modern Queens University) to accept a commission as second lieutenant in his uncle Ezekiel Polk's company of the Third South Carolina Regiment, commanded by Col. William Thomson. In a campaign to subdue Tory forces in South Carolina, he was severely wounded in the left shoulder at Great Cane Brake on 23 December 1775. Borne on a litter 120 miles to his father's home in North Carolina, he spent the following nine months recuperating from the dangerously infected wound. His reportedly was the first American blood shed south of Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. 1776, November 26: The Provincial Congress of North Carolina at Halifax elected young Polk major of the 9th North Carolina Regiment, North Carolina Continental Line. —was given command and marched the regiment to Maryland for inoculation against smallpox, then to Trenton, N.J., where it joined the main body of General Washington's army. 1777, September 11: Polk and his regiment saw action at the Battle of Brandywine. 1777, October 4: At the Battle of Germantown Polk was shot in the mouth while in the act of giving a command. The musket ball ranged along the upper jaw, knocking out four teeth and shattering the jawbone. When the Continentals began to give ground, Polk joined with the North Carolina militia and fought with them. Once De Kalb fell and the rout of Continentals was complete, Polk was able to lead a large number of troops in a successful retreat to North Carolina. That fall he acquired a position under General William Davidson. 1781, January: General Davidson's militia, including Polk, marched to the aid of Daniel Morgan, who after his success at Cowpens was on the run from the main body of Cornwallis's army. 1781, February - April: When Cornwallis attempted to cross the Catawba at Cowan's Ford, he was attacked by Davidson's militia. Polk was riding alongside Davidson when the general was shot from his horse and killed instantly. Word of Davidson's death spread quickly, and the demoralized militia broke in the face of an enemy bayonet charge. Polk rallied the few men he could and led them to Salem, reporting for service to General Andrew Pickens, with whom he remained until, following the Battle of Guilford Court House, Pickens left the army of General Nathanael Greene. Soon thereafter Polk was commissioned lieutenant colonel by Governor John Rutledge of South Carolina and took command of the 4th and then the 3rd regiments of that state, mustering his regiment under the command of General Thomas Sumter. Less than a month after being commissioned, Polk, together with troops under Colonel Wade Hampton, grandfather of the Confederate general of that name, led his regiment on a forced march of sixty miles in seventeen hours, surprising the British at Friday's Ferry on the Congaree and burning the blockhouse near Fort Granby, South Carolina. 1781, May 11–15: Polk joined General Greene at Fort Motte, which capitulated on the second day of a siege, and then marched under General Sumter's command to Orangeburg, where the British garrison quickly surrendered. 1781, September 8: Polk's regiment covered the left wing of the American army under General Nathanael Greene at the Battle of Eutaw Springs. While charging the enemy, Polk's horse was shot dead and fell on top of him, pinning him to the ground. A British soldier was in the act of plunging a bayonet into Polk when he was cut down by a sergeant in Polk's regiment. (Polk's brother Lieutenant Thomas Polk was killed during the battle.) With regard to Colonel Polk's performance that day, Greene wrote in his official report:

Lieutenant-Colonels Polk and Middleton were no less conspicuous for their good conduct than their intrepidity, and the troops under their command gave a specimen of what may be expected from men naturally brave when improved by proper discipline.

Eutaw Springs was the last major battle in the South prior to Yorktown and was Polk's final military engagement. With the end of hostilities, Polk returned to North Carolina, a veteran of some of the Revolution's fiercest battles and a survivor of the harshest winter encampment in the history of the United States military. He was twenty-two years old.

Post-war years

Politician and public servant In 1783 the North Carolina General Assembly appointed Polk as Surveyor General of the Middle District, now a part of Tennessee. In this capacity Polk also acquired large tracts of land in the area. Twice he was elected to the House of Commons before returning in 1786 to his native Mecklenburg County. He was re-elected to the House of Commons in 1787, served a one-year term and was re-elected in 1790. That March President George Washington appointed him as Supervisor of Internal Revenue for the District of North Carolina, a position he held for seventeen years, or until the Internal Revenue Laws were repealed.

After the death of his first wife in 1799, Polk moved to property on Blount Street in Raleigh. In December of that year he was elected Grand Master of Masons of North Carolina and served in that office until December 1802.

Polk was appointed as the first president of the State Bank of North Carolina in 1811 and held that office for eight years.

In June 1818 Polk became one of the first vice presidents of Raleigh Auxiliary of the American Colonization Society, which sought to resettle free American blacks in a colony in West Africa. This colony developed as Liberia. Polk remained active in the group for many years. The old State House building burned in June 1831 and the statue was destroyed. An accurate copy of the statue was produced in Italy from preserved molds in the 21st century and installed in the rotunda of the new Capitol building.

Speech Given by Colonel William Polk at the Dedication of Canova's WashingtonState House in Raleigh, North Carolina. December 24, 1821Fellow Citizens:- An enlightened Legislature, faithful to the emotions of a grateful people, has procured the Statue of our beloved Washington, formed by the highest skill of and artist whom all agree in calling the Michael Angelo of the Age.

Rome- once the citadel of the earth, the terror of Kings; now fallen, now defaced- still nourishes for the arts those talents by which patriotism and republican virtue are honored and recorded in the New World. Thus, it is that Providence, in its wise and mysterious dispensations, makes even degenerate nations in the instruments of preserving that holy reverence for the rights of humanity, which must ultimately issue in the establishment of the liberties of the world.

The country of Phocion and Leonidas may again be free; and some future Phidias, catching inspiration from the sublime ruins around him, make the marble tell to posterity the heroic actions of his contemporaries. America may justly glory in her Washington, the founder of her liberty, the friend of man. History and tradition are explored in vain for a parallel to his character. In other illustrious men, each possessed some shining quality, that was the foundation of his fame; in Washington, all the virtues were united- force of body, vigor of mind, ardent patriotism, contempt for riches, gentleness of disposition, courage and conduct in war. In the annals of modern greatness he stands alone, and noblest names of antiquity lose their luster in his presence. Born the benefactor of mankind, he united all the qualities necessary to an illustrious career. Nature made him great; he made himself virtuous. Called by his country to the defense of her liberties, the triumphantly vindicated the rights of man, and laid in the principles of freedom the foundations of a great republic. Twice invested with the supreme magistracy by the unanimous voice of the free people, he surpassed in the cabinet the glories of the field; and, voluntarily resigning the scepter of the sword, retired to the private shades of life.

A spectacle so new, so sublime, was contemplated with the profoundest admiration; and the name of Washington, adding new luster to humanity, resounded to the remotest regions of the earth. Magnanimous in youth, glorious through life, great in death, his highest ambition the happiness of mankind, his noblest victory the conquest of himself, bequeathing to posterity the inheritance of his fame, and building his monument in the hearts of his countrymen, he lived the ornament of the eighteenth century- he dies, regretted by a mourning world. The record of such virtues should be transmitted to posterity by every means the Muse of History, of Painting, and of Sculpture, can employ; and who is not profound of his country when he sees her thus munificently, consecrating the memory of the first patriots?

It is gratifying to know that the task was a favorite one to the Artist; he had an exalted admiration of the character of Washington, and he has accordingly lavished on the work some of the richest treasures of his genius. But Canova is an enlightened friend of liberty, and worthy to be the sculptor of its author. May we not, then, fellow-citizens, indulge the hope that this beautiful specimen of the arts, besides its moral effects in holding up to the imitation of youth the greatest qualities it commutates, also refine their taste and awaken their latent energies of genius- that while it inculcates the virtues that render life unusual to our country, it may diffuse a relish for the arts that embellish society, and call forth a display of the varied powers of man's ingenuity.

-The Raleigh Register, December 28, 1821 quoted by Marshall DeLancy Haywood: Colonel Polk was appointed to give an address on the occasion. Lafayette attended various balls, dinners, and other events, including breakfast at Colonel Polk's home on the morning of March 3.

Service to education Polk was appointed as a trustee of the University of North Carolina in 1790 and served until his death, including a term as president of the trustees from 1802-1805.

Marriages and family In October 1789 Polk married Grizelda Gilchrist, a granddaughter of a former colonial attorney general of North Carolina. Grizelda Polk died in 1799. James K. Polk, 11th President of the United States; William's first cousin, once removed, being the grandson of his father's brother Ezekiel. Leonidas Polk, William's second son by his wife Sarah, was known as "The Fighting Bishop." An Episcopal bishop, he was commissioned as a Confederate general during the Civil War. (Killed in action at Pine Mountain, Tennessee.) Leonidas Lafayette Polk, great-great-grandson of William Polk, a Confederate colonel and first North Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture. William Polk Hardeman Confederate Army General George Polk Journalist murdered in 1948.

Death Polk died on January 14, 1834, at his home in Raleigh.

His obituary in the January 21, 1834, issue of the Raleigh Register contained the following:

Colonel Polk was at his death the sole surviving field officer of the North Carolina Line; and it will be no disparagement to the illustrious dead to say that no one of his compatriots manifested deeper or more ardent devotion to the cause of his country; that in her service no officer more gallantly exposed his life or more cheerfully endured privation and suffering, and that no one of his rank in the army contributed more by his personal services to bring that glorious contest to a successful end.|The Raleigh Register, January 21, 1834, quoted by Marshall DeLancey Haywood Polk Correctional Institution (originally Polk Youth Institution), opened in 1997 near Butner, North Carolina, is a North Carolina maximum-security prison for men aged 19–25.

David Swain, the governor of North Carolina at the time of Polk's death, said: