Lacking a Wikipedia article on Maj.Gen. Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac, CSA.?

Let's spend some of my points on real scholarship.



Polignac ties with Felix Zollicoffer as the most obscure CSA general of the Civil War. Even Wilkipedia lacks an article on Prince P. So, for ten points (and a hot button by me voting your answers as best), write a good Wikipedia article ('twill be a long time if it comes to votes, but it's me who'll choose)



Extra points display his relationship to the Grimaldis.



We would like it to be scholarly. References to French works are allowed. There must be something in the TX and LA archives about him.



Yes, I've done all the research myself, and actually, am the author of some of it, but most of it played Dixie and had the Stars and Bars and links to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, of which I am eligable to belong.



More research is needed. This guy shoulda been played by Jean-Claude Van Damme, French accent and all, in an action-adventure film.Lacking a Wikipedia article on Maj.Gen. Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac, CSA.?
It's not exactly scholarly, but the best I could manage in the time available.



GENERAL CAMILLE ARMAND JULES MARIE DE POLIGNAC



Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac, was born at Millemont Seine-et-Oise, France, on February 16, 1832, the son of Jules de Polignac and Marie Charlotte (Parkyns). His father had been president of the Council of Charles X of France, the last reigning Bourbon king. His family roots can be traced back to Ebehard V, Count von Wuerttemberg (1388-1419).



Polignac studied mathematics and music at St. Stanislas College in the 1840s. In 1853 he joined the French army and won a Second Lieutenant's commission in the Crimean War where he served with honour. He resigned his commission in 1859 and travelled to Central America where he studied political economy, geography and natural history.



In 1861 he volunteered his services to the Confederacy and became chief of staff to P. G. T. Beauregard with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel of infantry. He fought at Shiloh and Corinth and in January 1863 was promoted to Brigadier General. In March he was transferred to the Trans-Mississippi Department to become the commander of a Texas infantry brigade. He led the Texans in skirmishes at Vidalia and Harrisonburg, Louisiana, in the spring of 1864, and made what was probably his greatest contribution to the Confederate cause at Mansfield in the first major action of the Red River campaign.



The Red River campaign of March-April, 1864 was the brainchild of Union commanders Generals Nathaniel P. Banks and William B. Franklin of New Orleans who were trying to make amends for their earlier fiasco of September, 1863, when 47 Irish artillerymen defeated their projected invasion of Texas at Sabine Pass. Their new plan attempted to invade Texas via the Red River and called for a fleet of gunboats on the river, and an army of 20,000 cavalry and infantry, accompanied by a baggage train of about 700 wagons.



An army of about 9,000 Confederates, under General Richard Taylor, had tactically withdrawn towards Shreveport, as Taylor sought to dictate the time and place that he would give battle. About March 7, 1864, Taylor decided that the ideal location was where four dirt roads forked ('Sabine Crossroads'), three miles east of Mansfield.



“By noon of April 8th, Generals J. G. Walker's and Alfred Mouton's divisions of 7,000 Confederate infantry had taken up positions at the edge of a clearing near a small hill in front of them. Their flanks were guarded by about 2,500 Confederate cavalry under Generals Tom Green and H. P. Bee and Colonel James Major. At four o’clock of the same day General Taylor ordered Mouton's division into battle, and the "blood-thirsty graybacks" charged up the hill into the right flank of the Union line. Within another five minutes, General Mouton was dead, and General de Polignac continued the charge, his sword waving a call to advance as the famed Rebel yell rang out behind him. General Taylor then ordered General Walker's infantry and General Tom Green's cavalry to attack the left flank as the melee progressed, after which the Union line broke and their infantry fled pell-mell to the rear. Banks rode up and down the Union ranks during the panic, begging his men to turn around and fight, but utterly to no avail.” [1]



By nightfall, the 12,000 Union soldiers engaged in the battle had lost 2,200 killed, wounded, and missing, while Taylor's army lost about 1,300, most of the casualties having been borne by Polignac's division. Polignac rose to division commander that day and was promoted to Major General on June 13, 1864. He was posthumously awarded the Confederate Medal of Honor for his actions at Mansfield.



Polignac led the division throughout the remainder of the campaign and during its service in Arkansas in the autumn of 1864. Despite being respected and admired by his men, they could not cope with his long French name and soon bestowed upon him the shorter sobriquet of 'Prince Polecat.' [2]



W. P. Doran, a war correspondent for the Houston Telegraph, who wrote under the pseudonym of 'Sioux,' stayed with Polignac's division throughout the Red River campaign, and in 1882 'Sioux' wrote of the general in his biography of Polignac, as follows:

“Polignac was a true type of a Frenchman. He was about forty-five years of age, medium size with a long sharp nose, and he resembled Napoleon Bonaparte's portraits. He spoke the French and English languages fluently, and when in camp, was no better dressed than one of his orderlies. Those not knowing him would take him for a common soldier. At one point in the woods, the Federals made a determined stand, and the writer ('Sioux') was near Polignac when he gave orders to the different commanders under him... He ordered battalions and regiments to the different points specified on his map with the ease of a chess player.



“Polignac was every inch a soldier, and although a (French) volunteer on the Southern side, he went at it with a vim, and throughout that memorable campaign, displayed great heroism and great soldierly qualities. Before the troops became acquainted with him, they daily ridiculed him; but when they saw his skill as an officer, commanding in the field, admiration of (Gen.) Polignac soon followed. If the leaders of the Confederacy had placed a few similar men in command of its armies, the lives of 10,000 brave men would not have been sacrificed by unskilled generalship.” [3]



In January 1865 he was sent to Napoleon III of France to request intervention on behalf of the Confederacy but having run the blockade to reach Spain he learned of General Lee’s surrender while trying to secure onward passage to France.



After the war he spent time on his French estate as well as traveling again to Central America. He wrote on mathematics as well as the Civil War and served as a Brigadier General in the Franco-Prussian War. In 1874 he married Marie Adolphine Longenberger, who died at the birth of their daughter. He married Elizabeth Margaret Knight in 1883, and they had two daughters and one son. Polignac continued to study mathematics and music until his death in Paris on November 15, 1913. He was the last man holding the rank of Confederate Major General to have died and was buried in Frankfurt, Germany.



1. W. T. Block, "Prince Polecat”: A Sketch of General Camille Armand de Polignac at the Battle of Mansfield, Louisiana.

2. Shelby Foote, The Civil War, A Narrative: Red River to Appomattox (New York: 1974), p. 44, cited W. T. Block, "Prince Polecat”: A Sketch of General Camille Armand de Polignac at the Battle of Mansfield, Louisiana.

3. W. P. Doran, "Biography of Major-General de Polignac," Galveston Weekly News, Dec. 14, 1882, cited W. T. Block, "Prince Polecat”: A Sketch of General Camille Armand de Polignac at the Battle of Mansfield, Louisiana.