Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Folly and the Madness: The Civil War Letters of Captain Orlando S. Palmer, Fifteenth Arkansas Infantry

The Folly and the Madness: The Civil War Letters of Captain Orlando S. Palmer, Fifteenth Arkansas Infantry

Cutrer, Thomas W.

Paperback

Series: Voices of the Civil War

Biographies GeneralMilitary BiographiesCivil War Period (1850-1877)

Publisher Price: $29.95

ISBN10: 1621908410
ISBN13: 9781621908418
Publisher: University of Tennessee Press
Published: Oct 27 2023
Pages: 264
Weight: 0.70
Height: 0.60 Width: 5.80 Depth: 8.90
Language: English
With a closeness perhaps unique to siblings orphaned young, Orlando and Artimisia Missie Palmer exchanged intimate letters throughout their lives. These letters (interspersed with additional letters from Oliver Kennedy, the Palmers' first cousin) offer a clear and entertaining window into the life and times of a junior Confederate officer serving in the Western Theater of the Civil War.

Though he initially felt Americans would see the folly and the madness of going to war, Orlando enlisted as a private in what would become Company H of the First (later Fifteenth) Arkansas Infantry, informing his sister that he had volunteered not for position, not for a name, but from patriotic motivation. However, he was ambitious enough to secure an appointment as Maj. Gen. William Joseph Hardee's personal secretary; he then rose to become his regiment's sergeant major, his company's first lieutenant, and later captain and brigade adjutant. Soldier letters typically report only what can be observed at the company level, but Palmer's high-ranking position offers a unique view of strategic rather than tactical operations.

Palmer's letters are not all related to his military experience, though, and the narrative is enhanced by his nuanced reflections on courtship customs and personal relationships. For instance, Palmer frequently attempts to entertain Missie with witticisms and tales of his active romantic life: We have so much to do, he quips, that we have no time to do anything save to visit the women. I am in love with several dozen of them and am having

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