| 1806 April 10 |
He is born in Raleigh, North Carolina. |
| 1821 | Attends the University of North Carolina. |
| 1823 | He earns an appointment to West Point and becomes a leader in the cadet corp. He resigned his commission soon after graduation. |
| 1827 | Graduates from West Point eighth in a class of 38. He is commissioned a Second Lieutenant of Artillery. |
| 1827 December 1 |
He resigns his commission soon after graduation. |
| 1831 | Attends Virginia Theologocal Seminary and is ordained at 24 as an Episcopal minister. As a minister in Louisiana and Mississippi in the 1830s he travels by boat, mail coach, horseback spreading the word of God. |
| 1838 | He is named missionary bishop of the southwest and the next year he held the first religious service in Shreveport. |
| 1841 | He becomes the first Episcopal bishop of Louisiana |
| 1842-1854 | Operates Leighton Plantation near Thibodaux |
| 1855 | He is the rector of the Trinity Church in New Orleans from 1855 to 1860 |
| 1860 | He resigns to devote more time to the founding of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee |
| 1861 June 25 |
Appointed a Major General in the Confederate Army and assumes command of Department No. 2 at Columbus, Ky. He accepts his commission in the new army as his duty to God. He has severed his relationship with the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States and discontinues prayers to the president of the U. S. He will be known as the Battling Bishop. |
| 1861 September 15 |
Reassigned as commander of the first Division of the Department. |
| 1862 April 6-7 |
Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee, commands the I Corps, Army of the Mississippi. |
| 1862 September |
Leads a corp of the Army of Tennessee undert General Braxton Bragg. |
| 1862 October 10 |
Promoted to Lieutenant General after being cited for gallantry at the Battle of Perryville Kentucky. |
| 1863 October 23 |
Commander of the Army of Mississippi |
| 1863 December 23 |
Commander of the Department of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana |
| 1864 May |
Commander of the Army of Tennessee |
| 1864 June 14 |
Killed by Union artillery at Pine Mountain, Georgia. |
| 1944 | Polk and his wife were buried in Augusta, Georgia, but in 1944 they were returned to New Orleans and buried at the Christ Church Cathedral. |