When I began researching Arkansas Confederate regiments, I immediately discovered that so much of what was presumed to be fact was based on misinterpretation, speculation, assumptions, and wishful thinking. I have tried to insure that my understanding of the Civil War in Arkansas is based on documentation, preferably two or more sources for each fact. Some of my friends say that I am obsessive, and they're probably right.
In the case of Cadwallader Long Polk, there is no record of him at all in the Compiled Service Records of Cocke's (39th) Arkansas Regiment. Although I *know* that he served in the regiment as a lieutenant-colonel, and was later promoted to colonel, probably with April 30, 1864, as his date of rank, I have not found any official record of his promotion. If there was such a record, then the Compiled Service Records would certainly have been catalogued as "Polk's Arkansas Regiment Infantry" instead of "Cocke's Arkansas Regiment Infantry." That's the point I was trying to make in my rant on regimental designations.