Seven manuscripts, 1866-1868, added to the papers of Nathan George Evans (1824-1868) offer insights into the post-Civil War activities of this brigadier general.

Two of the letters, 6 July and 26 October 1868, written from Eufala and Clayton, Alabama, by John Gill Shorter and Daniel M. Seals to Evans in Midway, Alabama, describe opportunities to take over the governance of schools in their respective towns. Seals seems particularly interested in having Evans assume the presidency of the “Male School” in Clayton and states that for “seven years past I have held you in high estimation for your efficient & gallant conduct rendered to our sacred ‘lost cause’, & gladly will I contribute...in any way to show my appreciation therefore.”

Three additional letters to Evans in Alabama written from Greenwood, S.C., by his aunt Anna in 1868 provide details about family affairs and Reconstruction. These include a letter of 9 August 1868 in which she describes a train trip taken by members of the South Carolina Legisla ture. “It was humiliating to see the So. Ca. Legislature pass up on the Cars not long since with the pretext to inspect the road from Columbia to Greenville to see them sitting in the car some without their coats mixed up with the whites and getting out at every Depot talking to the negroes, to be firm that they had things in their own hands to think what our state has come to which was once the pride of the union.”