I have copied below the Shiloh National Military Park's Face Book entry for Captain Marshall T. Polk’s Tennessee Battery.
Regards
Davids
In May of 1861, Tennessee Governor Isham Harris, who was with Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston when he died at Shiloh, began organizing state troops before the state voted to secede from the Union on Jun 8, 1861. In Bolivar, Tennessee, Marshall T. Polk began recruiting young men from Hardeman County and surrounding areas to form an artillery battery. Young men joined the new unit including young Thomas Peter who had just graduated from the University of Mississippi and his friend John Marsh, who was appointed second lieutenant. (Thomas’ father Dr. George Peters would become famous after he murdered Gen. Earl Van Dorn for committing adultery with his wife.)
Capt. Marshall T. Polk had been born in 1830 in Charlotte North Carolina, the son of Marshall Polk, Sr., brother to President James K. Polk. When his father died the next year, young Marshall had become a ward of his Uncle James K. Polk and his wife Sarah. When Polk was President he paid for Marshall to attend Georgetown College in Washington D.C. Young Marshall entered the Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated in 1852 and was assigned to the 2nd U.S. Infantry. In 1855 Lt. Polk served as an aide to Gen. William Harney and saw action during the Sioux Expedition, 1855 at the Battle of Blue Water Creek also known as the Harney Massacre. In 1856, Lt. Polk resigned and took up farming near Bolivar, Tennessee where he married Evelina McNeal Bills and had ten children.
The newly organized battery received four six-pounder cannons and two twelve-pounder howitzers made at the Quinby & Robinson Foundry in Memphis. They were mustered into Confederate service at Camp Brown, Union City, on August 7, 1861 and sent to Columbus, Kentucky, which was occupied by Confederates under Gen. Leonidas Polk on September 3, 1861. During the Battle of Belmont on November 7. 1861, Polk’s Battery was sent by steamboat to reinforce Confederate forces attacked by Gen. U.S. Grant across the Mississippi River. Unfortunately as they tried to disembark the gang plank fell off and they were forced to go back to Columbus to obtain a new one. By the time they returned the battle had ended with Grant retreating back to Cairo, Illinois.
After the Confederates withdrew from Columbus, Polk’s Battery was among the units gathered at Corinth, Mississippi for Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston’s attack on Grant’s army at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee. The battery was attached to Gen. Bushrod Johnson’s Brigade, but at 9:00 AM was directed by Gen. Braxton Bragg to move to the right into Rhea Field and engage Capt. Allen Waterhouse’s Illinois Battery on high ground across a branch of Shiloh Creek. Bragg had commanded an artillery battery during the Mexican War and was following Napoleonic tactics of placing the artillery near the front as an offensive force. What had worked in the Mexican War failed at Shiloh. When Marshall’s Battery came under fire from infantry and the rifled cannons of Waterhouse, Capt. Marshall was wounded in the leg and five of the cannon were knocked out. As Union forces fell back, Col. Preston Smith, of the 154th Tennessee Infantry ordered the remaining gun of the battery under Sgt. J. J. Pirtle forward on the hill to fire at the retreating enemy. As the single cannon fired canister into the woods, Union infantry concentrated their fire on it, killing and wounding some of the men and all of the horses. Sergeant Pirtle and Corporal John Kenney could hardly be persuaded to leave their gun and although Col. Smith sent infantry to assist them, it too was lost in the battle.
Having lost all of their guns and with their commander wounded, Polk’s Battery was dissolved after Shiloh, their one and only battle. The remaining artillerists were assigned to Capt. William Carnes’ Tennessee Battery. Marshall Polk would lose his leg at Shiloh but would continue serving with the Confederate army as a chief of artillery rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. After the war he farmed near Bolivar and served as Tennessee State Treasurer. He was eventually arrested for embezzling state funds, but died of a heart attack before serving any time for his actions. He is buried in the Polk Cemetery in Bolivar, Tennessee.
https://www.facebook.com/ShilohNMP/...first-and-last-battlein-may/1373324399424209/