I will try my own medicine on something I need.

During late August 1864 groups of Confederate Lieutenant Colonel John Calhoun "Coon" Thornton's military group of refugees from the failed July 1864 uprising of the Platte County area infiltrated through Yankee cavalry patrols south of the Missouri River between about August 24 and the remainder of the month in groups of 140 or less. These groups made their way south to join the regular Confederate lines in Arkansas. The "Official Records" in Series 1, Volume 41, Parts 1 and 2 on those dates referred to a Confederate Captain or Major Palmer who led the first group south. One Union account says his name may have been "Farmer," but most of the Yank reports say his name was "Palmer." This a Union patrol obtained from a local scout who impersonated a southern guerrilla and talked to local southern sympathizers who conferred with "Palmer" as his group passed by.

I have tried to find a Palmer of the Platte County area and even from the Jackson and Lafayette County area south of the river from the 1860 census and from lists of Missouri southern officers without success. I even examined lists of Missouri southern officers of the early war phase. Can anybody help me identify this mysterious "Captain or Major Palmer?" He could have come from anywhere in west Missouri, but more than likely the two or three counties that radiate from Kansas City.

Help!!

Bruce Nichols