AUTHOR: William Lea Palmer, Colonel, Infantry, US Army, Retired 19 April 1991
Great-Grandson of First Lieutenant Valentine Jackson Palmer, MD, C.S.A.
Valentine Jackson Palmer, MD, from Marion County, South Carolina, a graduate of
Jefferson Medical School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 02 October 1856, was from
Duncan Creek, Golden Valley, near Hollis, northeast Rutherford County, North
Carolina, joined the Army of the Confederate States of America (C.S.A.) on 10 May
1862. He was commissioned a First Lieutenant of Infantry, Executive Officer of F
Company (Infantry), Fifth-Sixth North Carolina Regiment, North Carolina Troops,
C.S.A. He chose to be in the Infantry and with the men of the two counties that F
Company represented – Rutherford and Cleveland Counties, and deferred a medical
assignment. He remained the Executive Officer of F Company until his capture at the
Battle of Five Forks, Virginia, 01 April 1865.
Lieutenant (Doctor) Valentine Jackson Palmer’s major military engagements were:
“The Virginia Peninsular Campaign” starting at Williamsburg [Fort Magruder] and
Drewry’s Bluff [Fort Darling] (May 1862), and later, the Battle of Chickahominy [1 st
Battle of Cold Harbor or the Battle of Gaines’ Mill – third of the “Seven Days
Battles”], Virginia (27 June 1862); picket duty 1863; Battle of Plymouth, Washington
County, northeast North Carolina (17 thru 20 April 1864) “was seriously wounded by
having back of thigh cut with piece of shell” five months to recover; Siege of
Petersburg [Battle of the Crater], Virginia (30 July 1864); Battle of Ream’s Station,
Virginia (25 August 1864); Battle of Fort Stedman [Hare’s Hill], Petersburg, Virginia
(25 March 1865); Battle of Five Forks [Dinwiddie Court House], southwest of
Petersburg, Virginia, was captured 01 April 1865 with four gun bearers, imprisoned at
Johnson’s Island in Lake Erie, Ohio. Lieutenant Valentine Jackson Palmer’s unit, F
Company, Fifth-Sixth North Carolina Regiment, North Carolina Troops was present at
Appomattox Court House, 09 April 1865, at the surrender on General Lee’s Army of
Northern Virginia, C.S.A.
He was “Released on Oath”, General Order 109, Register No. 2, Page 123, Johnson’s
Island, Ohio, 19 June 1865, returned home, practiced medicine in Duncan Creek, near
Hollis, Rutherford County and in 1886 moved to Cleveland County, near Polkville
where, he and his wife, Mary Donoho Bedford Palmer, raised a family of eleven, and
Valentine Jackson Palmer, MD, practiced medicine until his death in 1915.
