Camille Armand Jules Marie , Prince de Polignac Camille Armand Jules Marie , " Prince de Polignac " ( also known as Prince Polecat ; February 16 , 1832 – November 15 , 1913 ) was a French nobleman , scholar and soldier who joined the Confederate States Army at the outbreak of the American Civil War and became major general before the end of the war . He was one of the few French - born generals in the war . Early life and career . Polignac was born in Millemont Seine - et - Oise , France , into one of the most famous families of the French nobility . His grandmother , Gabrielle , had been a famous aristocratic beauty and Queen Marie - Antoinette ' s closest friend . His father was Jules , Prince de Polignac , who had been a passionate supporter of absolute monarchy and chief minister during the reign of King Charles X of France , who trusted him implicitly and shared his political sympathies . Through his distant cousin , Pierre de Polignac , he was related to the Grimaldis of Monaco , a family who still rule that principality today . Polignac studied mathematics and music at St . Stanislas College in the 1840s . In 1853 he joined the French army . He served in the Crimean War from 1854 to 1855 , receiving a commission as a second lieutenant . He resigned from the army in 1859 and traveled to Central America to study geography and political economy , as well as the native plant life . He then visited the United States in the early 1860s . Civil War . With the outbreak of the Civil War , Polignac initially served on the staffs of generals P . G . T . Beauregard and Braxton Bragg as a lieutenant colonel . He served at the Battle of Shiloh and the subsequent Siege of Corinth . In January 1863 , he was promoted to brigadier general . Two months later , he was transferred to the Trans - Mississippi Department and assigned command of a Texas infantry brigade . Polignac is best known for his leadership at the Battle of Mansfield , April 8 , 1864 , in De Soto Parish , Louisiana , a Confederate victory in the first major action of the Red River Campaign . Polignac received a battlefield promotion at Mansfield to division command after the death of General Alfred Mouton and then proceeded to fight again at the Pleasant Hill , further south in De Soto Parish . Formally promoted to major general on June 14 , 1864 , Polignac led the division throughout the remainder of the campaign and during its service in Arkansas in the fall of 1864 . In March 1865 he was sent to Napoleon III of France to request intervention on behalf of the Confederacy but arrived too late to accomplish his mission . He was affectionately known by his troops , unable to decipher how to pronounce his name , as " Prince Polecat . " He was reportedly more amused than angry when he learned what the term meant . Postbellum . After the Civil War , Polignac returned to his large estate in France , and resumed his travels and studies in Central America . He published several articles on his Civil War experiences . He returned to the French army as a brigadier general and commanded a division in the Franco - Prussian War ( 1870 to 1871 ) . In 1874 he married Marie Adolphine Longenberger ( 1853 – 1876 ) and had 1 daughter : He married Elizabeth Margaret Knight ( 1864 – 1940 ) in 1883 , and they had two daughters and one son : Polignac continued to study mathematics and music until his health failed . When he died in Paris , France at the age of 81 , Polignac was the last living Confederate major general . He was buried with his wife ' s family in Germany in Hauptfriedhof , Frankfurt - on - Main . The Texas Tech University historian Alwyn Barr in 1998 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 .