With far-sighted statesmanship, Dr. Quintard perceived in 1865, that the Church's effectiveness could be enhanced by the Division of the Diocese of Tennessee and the establishment of the See Episcopate in the three chief cities,--Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville. And from that time on, a division of the Diocese that would increase the efficiency of the work of the Church therein, was kept constantly before the minds of the people. But strange to say, the very arguments used in support of the plea for the relief needed, were made the excuse for not granting it. "It is impossible for the Church to grow in such a large territory under the supervision of a single bishop, let him work never so hard nor so wisely," constantly pleaded the Diocese of Tennessee. "The Church is not growing fast enough in the Diocese of Tennessee to warrant a division of that Diocese and an increase of Episcopal supervision therein," was the invariable reply. And so it was not until five years before the Bishop's death,--not until after he had worn himself out by his efforts to perform single-handed the work of three Bishops in his diocese,--not until after repeated illness had warned him that he must have relief,--that a Coadjutor was elected and consecrated for him.
The wide-spread popularity of Dr. Quintard, his personal magnetism and the large-hearted charity he had manifested in time of war, were not without their effect for a time upon the work he had undertaken. Wherever he appeared there flocked to meet him his old friends of the camp and battle-field. They felt that the religion he preached, having stood the test of adversity in war-time, was a good religion for times of peace,--a good religion to rule the every-day business of life. They readily yielded in large numbers to his persistent appeals to them to confess Christ before men. In his record of official acts published in the Diocesan Journal from year to year, he noted such gratifying incidents as the baptism and confirmation at his hands of some of the officers and men with whom his acquaintance had begun on the battle-field or in camp. In the few months that elapsed between his consecration and the meeting of his first Diocesan Convention, 314 persons were confirmed by him in Tennessee, and that number was a good yearly average of his confirmations for nearly thirty-three years; and his 470 confirmations, 152 sermons and 112 addresses, reported to the convention in 1867, for the first full year of his Episcopate, were a sample of the pace he set for himself at the beginning of his Episcopate.