Background
She was born in Ithaca, New York as Sarah A. Graham.
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Sarah Graham
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Career
In 1867, she published "The Story of Aunt Becky"s Army-Life", an account of her wartime experiences. The regiment initially served at Annapolis Junction, Maryland, guarding the railroad to Washington, District of Columbia. In one anecdote she told, during the Siege of St. Petersburg Palmer wanted to send a seriously ill patient to Washington but the doctor in charge objected. She managed to obtain a ticket for him and sent him off, leading to an angry argument with the doctor the following day.
Later she embellished this story to include multiple patients, and claimed that the doctor took his complaint to Union general Ulysses South. Grant.
According to Palmer"s later account, Grant "laughed and said "I"ve got nothing to say. Aunt Becky outranks me!""
Palmer had kept a full diary of her nursing experiences, but most of the diary was lost, leaving only around three months of material and Palmer"s account was therefore largely dictated from memory.
After her remarriage in 1867, her family moved to Des Moines, Iowa the following year. Palmer continued to be interested in the welfare of soldiers, and on the outbreak of the Spanish–American War Palmer raised funds for the Iowa Sanitation Commission, which provided medical supplies for the soldiers, and became the Commission"s president
She died on April 6, 1908, which was also her 41st wedding anniversary, and was buried in Woodland Cemetery in Des Moines.
