Joseph T. Derry , A. M. , Author of School History of the United States; Story of the Confederate War, etc., Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 6, Georgia
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

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[416] was elected colonel, whereupon he tendered his command to Gen. A. R. Lawton, and from that date his regiment served in the brigade successively commanded by Lawton, Gordon and himself. With the exception of a few months on the defensive lines below Savannah, his entire military service was rendered in the Virginia campaigns with the division commanded by Stonewall Jackson, Early and Gordon. He was commissioned brigadier-general May 19, 1863, and when Maj.-Gen. J. B. Gordon was assigned to command of the Second army corps as acting lieutenant-general, in November, 1864, he was at the same time promoted to the command of the division. In this position he served at first on the right of Lee's army at Hatcher's run, and subsequently in the trenches immediately opposite Petersburg. In the retreat of Lee, his division was in some kind of fighting almost daily, and in the final attack at Appomattox he led it into action, being engaged at the moment of the actual surrender. General Evans was in nearly all the battles in Virginia, and was five times wounded, twice severely. His military training for the war was obtained in the volunteer companies to which he belonged in his youth. Previous to the war he was a lawyer, having been graduated by the Augusta law school, and admitted to the bar in the nineteenth year of his age. He practiced in his native county of Stewart, in Georgia, was elected judge of his county court at the age of twenty-one, State senator at twenty-five, was on the Breckinridge electoral ticket which carried Georgia in 1860. and while senator entered the Confederate army. After the war he was engaged in the ministry of the Methodist church for twenty-five years, but being troubled by his old wounds, retired. He then employed himself in business affairs, and is so engaged at the date of this writing. General Evans has also been frequently charged with public trusts. He is trustee of three colleges, president of an educational loan fund association which he originated and which has aided over