Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/371

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General Leonidas Polk.
371

by Prussia, Austria, Holland, Sweden and Norway. Spain, France, Sardinia, the Republic of Bremen, and Pope Pius IX presented him with a set of all the medals struck during the pontificate. England and Belgium also offered medals. Denmark, Portugal, Russia, France, Belgium and Mexico presented decorations and orders of knighthood, which last he declined (being an officer of the United States Navy. He had, besides, about twenty diplomas from as many foreign scientific societies, but from the United States nothing, except his pay as a commander in the navy. The Czar of Russia offered him "a princely home on the banks of the Neva, and abundant means to prosecute his scientific researches," and the Emperor of France made a similar offer, but he declined both; he "could not leave his native State."

We are every day making history. What will be the fate of that nation that fails to make an honorable history for itself by fitly eulogizing its departed great ones?

Is England less proud to-day of the laurels won and worn by Milton because he threw himself on the side of the Protector? or does not France erect monuments equally beautiful to the memory of Coligny and Turenne? Maury's life work and greatest services were given freely to the United States several years before the war, and a grateful nation should gracefully acknowledge the services by which she has so largely profited. As an American ship-master said in the New York Tribune in a recent article on the subject: "The money saved to the commerce of the United States by the use of Lieutenant Maury's charts would erect a monument of precious stones sparkling with diamonds."




[From the Richmond Times, August 2, 1890.]


LEONIDAS POLK.




THE BISHOP-GENERAL WHO DIED FOR THE SOUTH.




Interesting Reminiscence of Life at West Point of the Gallant Churchman and Soldier.




By BISHOP CHARLES P. McILVAINE.




When I began duty as chaplain and professor of ethics, etc., at the Military Academy, West Point, in the summer of 1825, the late Bishop Polk was cadet in his third year.