Clement Anselm Evans was a Confederate army infantry general in the American Civil War. He was also a politician, preacher, historian and author.
Background
Clement Anselm Evans was born on February 25, 1833, in Stewart County, Georgia, United States. He was the son of Anselm Lynch and Sarah Hinton Bryan Evans. His father's family was of Welsh origin, established first in Virginia and later removing to Georgia. Members of it served in the two wars with Great Britain and against the Creeks in Georgia. His mother's family was of English descent.
Education
Clement's education was obtained in the public schools of Lumpkin, Georgia, and at William Tracy Gould’s law school in Augusta.
Career
Licensed to practice in the superior court at Augusta on January 30, 1852, before he was nineteen, Clement A. Evans entered a partnership with Bedford S. Worrill and practiced at Lumpkin.
He became a judge of the inferior court of Stewart County in 1855 and was a member of the state Senate in 1859-1861. A presidential elector in 1860, he voted for Breckinridge, and immediately after the election, in the expectation of war, helped to organize a local military company. He did not serve in it, however, but enlisted the next spring in the 316th Georgia Infantry, of which he was appointed major, being commissioned November 19, 1861. Practically all of his service during the war was with the Army of Northern Virginia. His regiment, of which he became a colonel in April 1862, was at first in Stonewall Jackson’s division and then successively under Early and Gordon. Evans led his regiment in the Peninsular campaign, acted as a brigade commander at times in 1862, including the latter part of the battle of Fredericksburg, and commanded his regiment at Gettysburg. Appointed brigadier-general in May 1864, he was assigned to the command of Gordon’s old brigade, which he led in Early’s raid against Washington - he was wounded at the battle of the Monocacy - and in the subsequent campaign in the Shenandoah Valley.
In November 1864 he succeeded Gordon in the command of the division. At Appomattox, it is said, his division won the last fight of Lee’s army. Notice that negotiations for surrender were in progress had reached neither Evans nor the Union troops opposing him, and Evans had just secured a local success, taking several guns and seventy-eight prisoners, when he received news that the surrender had taken place.
In 1866, as a circuit rider on Manassas Circuit, Bartow County, he began a ministry of more than twenty-five years. In 1892 he retired from the ministry, feeling unfit for parochial duties because of disability resulting from the five wounds he had received in the war. All the latter part of his life was spent in Atlanta. Upon the organization of the United Confederate Veterans in 1889, he had been chosen as its "Adjutant General and Chief of Staff," and he continued active in the work of the organization for the rest of his life. For twelve years he was commander of its Georgia division, for three years commander of a department (of seven states), and in 1908 was elected commander-in-chief. He published a "Military History of Georgia" in 1895, and then undertook the editorship of the Confederate Military History, work in twelve volumes which appeared in 1899. It deals chiefly with military operations, as its name promises, but includes several articles on other matters, Evans himself contributing to the first volume an extensive "Civil History of the Confederate States." A notable feature is the series of biographical sketches, usually accompanied by portraits, of all the general officers of the Confederate army. After the completion of this historical work, he interested himself in the movement for the establishment at Richmond of the Confederate Memorial Institute, the museum of history and art popularly known as the "Confederate Battle Abbey." He served as president of the organization until his death. The building was completed and opened some years later. He was co-editor with Allen D. Candler of Georgia, a three-volume work in cyclopedic form, published in 1906. Educational matters always interested him.
In December 1865, Clement applied for admission to the North Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He pastored churches in the Atlanta area, some with memberships as large as 1,000, until his retirement in 1892.
Evans felt divinely inspired to teach the lessons of humility, brotherly love, and Christian forbearance. He promised God and himself that he would enter the ministry after the war.
Politics
Switching political allegiances, Evans supported the Southern Democratic ticket in the election of 1860 and was chosen as an alternate elector to the Electoral College in support of the party's presidential candidate, John C. Breckenridge.
Views
At Fredericksburg, in December 1862, Evans had been very much impressed and depressed by the carnage and suffering which he saw, and he later said that he made up his mind then that if he were allowed to survive the war he would spend the rest of his life trying to teach men how to live together instead of murdering each other.
Quotations:
"If we cannot justify the South in the act of Secession, we will go down in History solely as a brave, impulsive but rash people who attempted in an illegal manner to overthrow the Union of our Country."
Connections
On February 8, 1854, Clement married Mary Allen Walton. His first wife died in 1884, on October 14, 1887, he married Sarah Avary Howard, of Decatur, Georgia, who died in 1902.
Civil War High Commands
Based on nearly five decades of research, this magisterial work is a biographical register and analysis of the people who most directly influenced the course of the Civil War, its high commanders. Numbering 3,396, they include the presidents and their cabinet members, state governors, general officers of the Union and Confederate armies (regular, provisional, volunteers, and militia), and admirals and commodores of the two navies.
2002
The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History eBook: Gary W. Gallagher, Gary W. Gallagher, Alan T. Nolan: Kindle Store
A "well-reasoned and timely" (Booklist) essay collection interrogates the Lost Cause myth in Civil War historiography. Was the Confederacy doomed from the start in its struggle against the superior might of the Union? Did its forces fight heroically against all odds for the cause of states’ rights? In reality, these suggestions are an elaborate and intentional effort on the part of Southerners to rationalize the secession and the war itself.
2000
Who Was Who in the Confederacy
A unique resource detailing the principal participants of the Civil War. It contains complete, detailed bios of soldiers from Robert E. Lee to forgotten scouts and spies.
1989
Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders
When Generals in Gray was published in 1959, scholars and critics immediately hailed it as one of the few indispensable books on the American Civil War. Historian Stanley Horn, for example, wrote, "It is difficult for a reviewer to restrain his enthusiasm in recommending a monumental book of this high quality and value."