Stephen Elliott was a founder of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee, and had founded the Montpelier Female Institute in Georgia in the 1840s.

He was wounded during the Second Battle of Bull Run and was accompanying Joseph E. Johnston at the time of his surrender in May 1865.

[3] After the war he settled in Rome, Georgia, where he studied for the priesthood and where he was ordained deacon on August 4, 1868, in St Peter's Church by Bishop Charles Todd Quintard of Tennessee.

Between August 1, 1868, and September 1870 he was in charge of the missions in Cave Spring, Centerville,Dalton, and Kingston.

Elliott was the founder of St. Mary's Hall in San Antonio, Texas (1879), an institution once closely affiliated with the Episcopal Church.