Review - "The Folly and the Madness: The Civil War Letters of Captain Orlando S. Palmer, Fifteenth Arkansas Infantry" edited by Thomas Cutrer

[The Folly and the Madness: The Civil War Letters of Captain Orlando S. Palmer, Fifteenth Arkansas Infantry edited by Thomas W. Cutrer (University of Tennessee Press, 2023). Softcover, 4 maps, photos, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:154/230. ISBN:978-1-62190-841-8. $39]

The Folly and the Madness: The Civil War Letters of Captain Orlando S. Palmer, Fifteenth Arkansas Infantry is a recent installment from University of Tennessee Press's venerable Voices of the Civil War series. In the main, the volume consists of secession period and wartime letters from lawyer and Civil War officer Orlando Palmer (1833-1864) to his younger sister Artimisia Palmer. The experience of being orphaned relatively early in life (Orlando was eleven when his father died, and the pair's mother passed away six years later) seems to have fostered a very tight emotional bond between the two. Orlando's letters to Missie (as his sister was called) are consistently encouraging and deeply solicitous of her welfare.

As explained in editor Thomas Cutrer's introduction, the Palmers were raised in northern Alabama near the border with Tennessee. When Orlando moved away, first to briefly attend Cumberland School of Law in Tennessee and then to start his professional career in Des Arc, Arkansas, Artimisia lived with their grandparents in Florence, Alabama. In addition to filling in background information and context for the letters that follow, Cutrer also introduces readers to the Palmer's extended family network, which is helpful as he uses the letters of first cousin Oliver Kennedy to fill in some of the considerable time and content gaps in the Palmer correspondence. Though Orlando displays some sympathies with Fire-eater politics and joined a local militia company for presumably more than just social reasons, he did not look forward to nor did he anticipate war between the sections, which he deemed "folly" and "madness." After tidying up his law practice affairs, he enlisted in what would become the Fifteenth Arkansas Volunteer Infantry. No doubt influenced by his education, background, and rising reputation in the legal field, administrative postings took Palmer out of the ranks and into brigade headquarters. Indeed, he was employed by a succession of generals, his roles including secretary to William J. Hardee and brigade adjutant to Sterling A.M. Wood and successor Mark Lowrey.

Though ground-level military perspectives are obviously narrow with very limited knowledge of larger affairs, the opinions of intelligent lower-ranking officers regarding superior officers in the same army are always interesting to read. While Palmer does not describe his adjutant duties to his sister in any detail, his headquarters positions presumably afforded him some personal access to the higher echelons of western theater generals. Palmer's very negative first impression of Hardee's haughty treatment of him as the general's personal secretary was quickly replaced by esteem. Beyond the Arkansas connection, it should come as no surprise that Patrick Cleburne is described in glowing terms. Though one wishes he had explained his views in more depth, Palmer positively gushes about Simon Bolivar Buckner, proclaiming him to be the officer that he prefers over all others. Presumably that opinion grew out of personal interactions or observations made during the prolonged early-war occupation of Bowling Green, Kentucky. Palmer also viewed Army of Tennessee commander Braxton Bragg as a competent leader and expressed no wish to join that general's list of abusers and detractors that grew as the war progressed. Even after the disaster at Chattanooga, not a single negative word about Bragg's leadership can be found in Palmer's letters, only confidence in the future. This reinforces the research conclusions of recent biographer Earl Hess and others before him who have strongly challenged the traditional notion in the literature that Bragg was deeply unpopular. Somewhat curiously, beyond general comments expressing how agreeable their working and personal relationships were, Palmer writes relatively little about Brig. Gen. S.A.M. Wood, the man whom he directly served in the capacity of brigade adjutant before Wood resigned between Chickamauga and Chattanooga (and was replaced by newly promoted general Mark Lowrey, who kept Palmer on in the same post).

As mentioned before, there are significant gaps in Palmer's correspondence, and Cutrer gamely tries to fill them with letters from family members, most prominently a first cousin named Oliver Kennedy. One particularly lengthy gap (which filled much of 1862) was between Bowling Green and the aftermath of the 1862 Kentucky Campaign. Palmer's serious leg wound suffered at Shiloh was undoubtedly a major factor in making letter writing less of a priority, but it is unfortunate to have no letters from such a critical, event-filled period. In fact, Palmer's body of correspondence consistently leaves large gaps around major movements and battles, which is understandable on his part but frustrating for future readers. For example, it is unfortunate that Palmer, who correctly anticipated that Union Army of the Cumberland commander William S. Rosecrans would attempt to outflank Tullahoma's built-up defenses, did not write about the actual campaign of maneuver once it started nor did he describe for his sister the pitched battle at Chickamauga that followed it. Though it's possible such letters once existed, it is October 1863 before known correspondence from Palmer picks up again. He does offer some brief observations regarding the fighting experiences of his own brigade and division at Tunnel Hill and Ringgold, but once again demurs when it comes to offering more detailed information. Anticipating his sister's interest in the battle fought and lost along Missionary Ridge, Palmer offers the common refrain ["I am not prepared to give you a general description of the battle, not being sufficiently informed to do so with any satisfaction" (pg. 129)]. A few letters follow from the period of the 1864 Atlanta Campaign, most notably a short description of the June 27 fight at Kennesaw Mountain. Palmer's letter writing campaign ended on June 29, with no surviving correspondence existing between that day and his death in action five months later during the November 30, 1864 assault at Franklin.

Due to what would quickly become a permanent detachment from his regiment to brigade headquarters, the Palmer letters as a whole will not greatly satisfy readers hoping to find an extensive personal record of wartime service with the 15th Arkansas. The letters contain a great deal of the typical content found in Civil War correspondence, including descriptions of personal health, inquiries about the well-being of extended family members, news from home, and gossip. A unique facet of Orlando Palmer's letters are his continual attempts at assuaging his sister's melancholy, the mindful tenderness and frequency of which leads the editor to surmise that Missie suffered from what we might diagnose today as clinical depression (though we can never know that for certain). Courtship rituals and behavioral mores regarding relations between men and women are also common subjects of discussion, prodigious commentary and advice apparently coming from both sides of the letter exchange. Palmer also repeatedly enjoins his sister to expand her horizons of independence.

In terms of editorial duties, Cutrer contributes the aforementioned chapter-length introduction and helps bridge the more extended time gaps with helpful contextual narrative. Additional context can be found in the volume's frequently lengthy explanatory endnotes. In this particular collection of soldier letters, cultural and societal insights outnumber military ones, but it's a solid entry in a series that always manages to sustain its reputation for masterful curation of Civil War primary source materials.