Joseph Benjamin Johns, son of Mildred Ann Johns and William H. Palmer.
Mildred was the daughter of Joseph B. Johns and Elizabeth Vaughan
Johns, early settlers in Rutherford Co.
 

Joseph Benjamin Palmer  Born: November 1 1825, Rutherford Cty TN  Died:
November 4 1890, Murfreesboro TN  Pre-War Profession: Lawyer,
politician.
War Service: 1861 raised a company which became part of 18th Tennessee - Col., Fort
Donelson, exchanged August 1862, commanded 2ns Bde/1st Divn/Hardee's
Corps at Murfreesboro (wounded), after convalescence resumed regimental
command, Chickamauga (wounded), Atlanta campaign, Jonesboro (wounded),
November 1864 Brig. Gen., commanded a brigade at Murfreesboro in Hood's Tennessee
campaign, in Stevenson's division in the retreat from Nashville, Carolinas
campaign, Bentonville. Post War Career:
Lawyer. Further Reading:

Neff, Robert Owen Tennessee's battered brigadier : the life of General
Joseph B. Palmer Nashville TN, Historic Travellers' Rest 1988
http://www.trader- skis.com/generals/confederate_generals/p/palmer_j_b.htm
 

Brigadier-General Joseph B. Palmer, at the beginning of the war, was a
prominent lawyer of Murfreesboro, Tenn. He opposed secession, and
insisted that the South should make her fight in the Union. But like the vast
majority of Southern Union men, he believed that his first allegiance was due
to his State. So when Tennessee resolved upon secession, he obeyed her voice
and raised a company for the defense of the South. Of this company he was
elected captain, and when it, with nine other companies, was formed into the
Eighteenth Tennessee regiment of infantry, Captain Palmer was
unanimously elected colonel. This regiment was assigned to the army commanded by
Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston. It formed a part of the army at Fort Donelson,
sharing in the glories and disasters of that fierce conflict. When
the fort was surrendered, February 16, 1862, Colonel Palmer and his men found
themselves prisoners of war. He was kept in prison at Fort Warren
until his exchange in August, 1862, then joined his regiment, which had also
been just exchanged at Vicksburg. Shortly afterward the regiment was
reorganized at Jackson, Miss., and re-elected Palmer as its colonel. In
Breckinridge's brilliant, though unsuccessful charge at Murfreesboro on the 2d day of
January, 1863, Palmer's regiment suffered heavily, and Palmer was
himself badly wounded in three places. These wounds incapacitated him for
service for about four months, but he returned to his regiment in time for the
battle of Chickamauga, where, while leading his command in one of the headlong
charges of that hotly-contested field, he received another dangerous wound in
the shoulder, which bled so profusely as to threaten death before help
could come. It was not until the army reached Atlanta that he was in
condition to resume his duties. Here he was appointed to the command of his
brigade, and commissioned brigadier-general November 15, 1864. His brigade,
formerly commanded by John C. Brown, comprised the Third, Eighteenth, Thirty-
second, and Forty-fifth Tennessee regiments. In the campaign of Hood into
Tennessee, this brigade was detached from the army at Nashville and send to co-
operate with Bate and Forrest in a movement against Murfreesboro. On the
retreat of the army, Palmer's brigade formed part of the force under Walthall and
Forrest which brought up the rear, and did its duty so bravely as to
win the applause of even the enemy. During the North Carolina campaign of
1865, all the decimated infantry regiments of Tennessee then serving under
Johnston were consolidated into four regiments and placed in a brigade
commanded by General Palmer. Mr. G. N. Baskette, of Nashville, Tenn. (Confederate
Veteran, November 1897), relates a remarkable exploit of Palmer's brigade at
the battle of Bentonville, the last one fought by the gallant army of
Tennessee. On this occasion, "part of Palmer's brigade charged through the
enemy's line and kept on to the rear of the Federal army, capturing a number of
prisoners, and by a detour, after a long and painful march of about a week,
rejoined the brigade." The same writer, summing up the character of General
Palmer, says: [H]e was ever courteous to his subordinate officers and men in the
line, and while maintaining proper discipline had always a warm sympathy for
the boys in the trenches or on the march. On the battlefield he was cool and
collected, bearing himself always as a leader who felt the weight of
his responsibility, and yet was ever ready to brave any danger which
promised to benefit the cause of which he was devoted.
At the close of the war, General Palmer proved himself as good a
citizen as he had been a soldier. He died on the 4th of November, 1890, mourned
by his many friends and countrymen.
 

Source: Evans, Clement, ed. Confederate Military History, Vol. XII,
Confederate Publishing Company, Atlanta, GA, 1899