American Civil War Confederate Major General. He was a French aristocrat, who served in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. His father, Jules, was the last prime minster of King Charles X and his grandmother, the Duchess de Polignac, was governess of Marie Antoinette's children. His cousin's line became the ruler of Monaco. Prince de Polignac was one of the highest-ranking foreigners to serve in the Confederate Army. Having a long-distinguished military career, he had previously served in the French Army as a second lieutenant during the Crimean War from 1854 to 1855, and later commanded a division in the Franco-Prussian War from 1870 to 1871. During the 1840s, he studied music and mathematics at Saint Stanislas College and traveled to Central America to study economics and politics in the late 1860s. He had no formal military training, yet became an officer in the Confederate Army. Following a trip to Central America to study plants, he was traveling in the United States when the American Civil War started. After joining the Confederate Army in 1861 as a lieutenant colonel, he served as General P. G. T. Beauregard's chief of staff before being promoted in January of 1863 to brigadier general. The following March, he was transferred to the Tran-Mississippi Department to command a Texas infantry brigade. In Louisiana, he led in skirmishes during the early spring of 1864. His first major action was at the Battle of Mansfield during the Red River Campaign from March 10th to May 22nd, which was a victory for the Confederate Army. He gained a promotion to Major General after General Alfred Mouton's death within minutes of the battle starting. He led while his unit served in Arkansas in the fall of 1864. In March of 1865 he returned to France to request aide for the Confederacy from Napoleon III of France but never returned. During the war, he had served as a fearless chess player while on the battle field. His brigade disbanded in May of 1865 shortly after General Lee's surrender. In 1874 he married Marie Longenberger, who died in childbirth. The couple had a daughter in June of 1876. Although he died in Paris, he is buried in his first wife's family plot in Germany. In 1883 he married Elizabeth Margaret Knight, 32 years his junior, and the couple had two daughters and a son. For the French audience, he published several articles on his experiences in the American Civil War including "L'union américaine après la guerre" or "The American Union After the War." He may be the only foreign soldier of the American Civil War on either side to reach the rank of Major General. Although he is credited in some sources as the last living Confederate Major General when he died in 1913, others question that statement, claiming Evander McIver Law, who died in 1920 in Florida, has that honor. In 1998 the Texas Tech University historian Alwyn Barr released the second edition of his "Polignac's Texas Brigade," a study of Polignac and the Texans who fought in Mansfield and then Sabine Crossroads.