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Born on the level! Born on the square!
BIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM MECKLENBURG POLK 1758-1834
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Heroism in the American Revolution
William Polk was probably fighting in more battles and suffering more wounds than any other officer who survived the Revolution. He commanded several expeditions in South Carolina—Ninety-Six, Dorchester, Granby, Orangeburgh. During one he took as his prisoner Colonel Thomas Fletcher, a noted Tory leader. Then he tried to capture a Loyalist party and was severely wounded in his left shoulder at Great Cane Break December 22, 1775. He was the first man wounded in that battle, indeed his was the first American blood spilled south of Lexington, Massachusetts. His injuries left him unable to fight during ten months of recuperation. That gave him time to write his memoirs, in third person prose, depicting his war exploits in such first-person detail one might think he were engaged in a blood sport: “When at camp there was no surgeon to dress the wound, the bullet holes were plugged with tow (hemp) from the shot bags of the soldiers, and in this situation without a tent or other than a blanket, he lay during the night in a snow storm 13 inches deep in the morning.”
He was elected major of the Ninth NC Regiment by the NC Provincial Congress at Halifax and put in command of four companies. He quickly marched his division of the line into New Jersey to join General Washington’s army. He was there with Washington through the tragedy and nobility of Valley Forge.
And he was there at the battles of the Brandywine and Germantown in October, 1777. At Germantown he was shot in the mouth, shattering his jaw. Later in March, when nine North Carolina regiments consolidated, he was left with no command. So he returned south to “enroll more recruits in North Carolina,” according to Polk’s Folly. “He had little success. As he coldly commented, ‘The amor patriae and enthusiasm which brought soldiers into the army at the commencement of the War had very much abated—besides the money had so much depreciated that it was considered next to no consideration as a bounty.’” Young Polk volunteered with the militia and worked as aide to General Richard Caswell when Gates was defeated at Camden, NJ.
Never to be forgotten was the drama of Will and his father Thomas Polk teaming up to save the Liberty Bell from English meltdown so it could be used for bullets against the Americans. What drove these Polks to lead 200 NC cavalry troops to carry out that secret mission from Philadelphia to an Allentown church? Answer: the Americans had already performed such an act earlier when they melted down the statue of King George III in New York. The English were hungry for revenge.
Next, Will fought under General William Davidson, and was sent as an envoy to Governor Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. On his return he joined General Andrew Pickens and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in the 4th South Carolina cavalry attached to General Thomas Sumter. He fought at Guilford Court House and Eutaw Springs in the fall and winter of 1780. On September 8, 1781, Will was there at Eutaw Springs when his brother Thomas was savagely killed and left naked.
Will Polk’s military service totaled five years and two months. He was just 22 years old when he was granted 100,000 acres of Tennessee land in return for service to his new nation. He never did get to finish school.
Polk is credited with organizing the Society of the Cincinnati in North Carolina in 1783 in Hillsborough. This is the prestigious group of former Revolutionary War officers and their descendants still active today. North Carolina was one of 13 states with organizations subordinate to the national one whose first President General was George Washington.
read more | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
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Produced by the public relations committee of the Grand Lodge AF&AM of Masons in North Carolina,
2921 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27628 MMVIII
Author/editor: Walter J. Klein wklein(at)carolina.rr.com
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