me month, composed entirely of the Committee of Safety, met
for the purpose of passing such rules and regulations as the internal
government of the county demanded.
At the Provincial Congress which met at Halifax on the 4th of April,
1776, he was appointed Colonel of the fourth regiment of Continental
troops, with James Thackson as Lieutenant-Colonel, and William
Davidson as Major. The last named officer was afterward appointed a
Brigadier General, and was killed while disputing the passage of
Cornwallis at Cowan's Ford, on the 1st of February, 1781. After the
death of General Davidson, he was appointed Brigadier General in his
stead. When General Greene took command of the Southern army in
Charlotte on the 3rd of December, 1780, the commissary department was
left vacant by the resignation of Colonel Polk. At the earnest
solicitation of General Greene, Colonel Davie was induced to accept
the position, an ungracious and troublesome office at any time, but
then attended with peculiar difficulties, as the country had been
lately devastated and stripped of its usual resources by a large
invading army.
Colonel Thomas Polk married Susan Spratt, and left several children.
He died in 1793, full of years and full of honors, and his mortal
remains repose in the graveyard of the Presbyterian Church in
Charlotte.
William Polk, son of Colonel Thomas Polk, was born in 1759, and was
present at the Mecklenburg Convention of the 19th and 20th of May,
1775. He commenced his military career with his father in the
expedition against the Scovillite Tories, in upper South Carolina, in
the autumn of 1775. He was with General Nash when he fell at
Germantown; with General Davidson, at Cowan's Ford; with General
Greene, at Guilford Court House; and with the same officer at Eutaw
Springs. In the last named battle he was severely wounded, the effects
of which he carried with him to his grave. When the war closed, he
held the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He settled in Charlotte, his
place of nativity, and represented Mecklenburg county in the Commons
in 1787-'90, and '91. Soon thereafter he removed to Raleigh, where he
spent the remainder of his life. He was the last surviving field
officer of the North Carolina line. He died on the 14th of January,
1835, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. He was the father of
Bishop Leonidas Polk, a brave and meritorious officer, killed in the
late civil war, while holding the position of Major General; o
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