McClellan had one final chance to use his scout, who arrived at Little Mac’s headquarters at midnight on September 15 and delivered, in person, a highly accurate and up-to-the-minute report on the disposition of the invading forces. McClellan apparently ignored it. Between McClellan’s timid temporizing and Curtin’s amateurish mishandling of the only accurate reporting of Confederate movements from Sep­tem­ber 12 to 15, the chance to decisively defeat Lee was irretrievably lost.

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After the battle, Palmer’s services remained in demand, however. On Sep­tem­ber 18, McClellan wanted assurance that Lee’s army would indeed be retreating from Sharpsburg. He asked Palmer to go to Shepherdstown, Va., to scout the Rebels’ whereabouts. An energetic Lutheran pastor and amateur espionage agent, the Rev. I.J. Stine, joined the dangerous mission, which Palmer later said he under­took “in a fit of injudicious patriotism.”

Palmer and Stine, both in civilian clothes, arrived at a house on the Virginia side of the Potomac barely 10 minutes before a Confederate cavalry unit. Stine managed to slip away, but Palmer was captured. He introduced himself as W.J. Peters, an engineer on his way to inspect mines in Cumberland, Md. Palmer was taken to Brig. Gen. William N. Pendleton, Lee’s chief of artillery, who quizzed him intently on geology and concluded that the so-called Peters was actually a spy. Pendleton, a West Point graduate and Episcopal clergyman noted for his long-winded sermons, wrote an extensive report on Palmer that he forwarded with the captive to Castle Thunder prison in Richmond. To the Northerner’s good fortune, however, Pendleton’s trademark verbosity saved Palmer’s life: The overworked jailor took one look at the ponderous document and threw it into a desk drawer, unread.

“W.J. Peters” was safe for the moment, but not for long. Union newspapers circulated freely in the prison. A fellow prisoner quietly called Palmer’s attention to a recent Philadelphia paper that told the story of his arrest, providing full geographic details and Palmer’s true name. To Palmer’s astonishment, no Confederate official made the connection. Newly arriving prisoners often addressed him by his real name until cautioned otherwise, but still he escaped detection.

Four months later, Palmer was released and sent north, still officially known as Peters. In February 1863, after recuperating for only two weeks, he went west on a new assignment—or rather to resume his role as colonel of the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry. His regiment was then in Tennessee in deplorable shape. Nearly 600 men had been arrested and were facing death on charges of mutiny. When the men had been ordered into the Battle of Mur­freesboro, two-thirds of them refused. They claimed they were badly short of officers, which was true. They also complained that they had been enlisted as an elite scouting outfit and resented being used as “ordinary cavalry.” A great deal of the unrest had been fomented by malcontents who had political connections in Philadelphia.

Command of the regiment had become chaotic at best while Palmer was in prison. Lieutenant Colonel William Spencer had become too ill to carry out his duties, and Majors Adolph Rosen­garten and Frank Ward, who led the 200 nonmutinous men into battle, had both been killed at Murfreesboro. There were shortages of officers, both commissioned and noncommissioned. The mutiny was under investigation by Major Nelson Davis, acting under the direct orders of the iron-fisted secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton. It would be hard to imagine a more demoralized regiment than the one that greeted Palmer in Tennessee.

Within weeks, by force of his personality and his administrative ability, Palmer had negotiated a settlement in which the regiment was reorganized and the mutineers were spared the firing squad—provided they behaved in the future. He led his unit forward so successfully that in the succeeding years Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas, who was not easily impressed, publicly praised Palmer’s command and urged that he receive a brigadier’s star.

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