CSA

Son of Thomas and Jane Beverly Daniel Evans. He married Maria Antionette Powell on January 04, 1865 in the home of Col. D. Lee Powell, of Richmond, VA.

"Source: "The History of Nathaniel Evans of Catfish Creek and His Descendants", by James Daniel Evans, 1905, son of James Daniel, M. D.

"---James early education was at Marion Academy under Mr. Jerry Dargan, like his brothers previously. He entered the South Carolina Military Academy in class of 1853 at the age of seventeen. By the middle of his third year, his class had covered half of the prescribed course for the senior class, from which five members of his class were chosen to act as Adjunct instructions in the institution, though these positions had formerly been filled by the senior or first class. This caused friction between the first class and second classes, which culminated in an interference from the commandant and the resulting rebellion of the second class of 1853, of which James was a member. The Trustees of the Institution, while recognizing the justice of the classes cause, deemed their action an intolerable breach of military discipline, and its members were expelled, James Evans being included.

Returning home, James immediately tendered his services as an engineer to the Cheraw and Darlington Railroad Company, which was then construction its roadway; and with his classmate Robert L. Singletary, who became his brother-in-law, and who also attained distinction as the builder of the Florida Keys Railroad, and became President of the Charleston and Savannah Railroad, served through the construction work of that line. James, then taking the advice of Horace Greeley, went west. He taught school for a term at Carroll County, Miss., and then attracting the attention of General Tilghman, who was at the time engaged in the building of the Little Rock and Napoleon, now New Orleans and Mississippi Railway, he joined the corps of engineers employed in that work, with his headquarters at the famous and notorious town of Napoleon, then known as the wickedness place on the Mississippi, and therefore, in the world.

In 1857, the Governor of Arkansas appointed James Evans as he State Civil Engineer, with charge of the building of all the great levees along the Mississippi, Arkansas and Red River fronts. During his services on the Mississippi, he lived through the terrible scourge of yellow fever of 1856--his only companions to beat it with him being two Catholic priests, whose devotion to the sick and dying were always one of the sweet recollections of that terrible period. In the Spring of 1859, he entered the University of Pennsylvania to pursue the study of medicine. From that institution he graduated in the Spring 0f 1861. He did this through private instruction, under the instruction of a Dr. Pepper and Dr. J. M. DaCosta. He went to New York intending to sail for Europe, where he expected to complete his professional studies in the great universities and hospitals of London, Paris and Berlin; but before his departure, the sailing of the "Star of the West" to Charleston ignited the blaze which was to ravage his country with war, and he hastened South to volunteer as a soldier under South Carolina's banner. Thinking that Virginia was going to be the battle ground, he hastened there, arriving in time to volunteer his professional services upon the field of the First Manassas. After that battler, he was placed in charge of the Division Hospital at Leesburg, Virginia. While stationed there, Dr. Evans met his wife. He was soon detailed from service at Leesburg and made an assistant to Dr. Fred Giddings, at the hospital established at Adams Run, SC. Here he suffered a severe attack of hemorrhagic fever, and upon his recovery he repaired again to rank of Major, to the 3rd South Carolina Regiment of Volunteers---Col. James Nance, Kershaw's Brigade, McClaw's Division, Longstreet's Corps, A. N. Virginia. With this regiment he shared all of the campaigns, hardships and privations of the long and bloody war.

At the conclusion of the war, Dr. Evans with no possessions but a wife, a gold watch and a silver Mexican dollar---one of five which he received at the surrender---all three of which precious possessions he preserved, set out for his native State. He bought a plantation in Marion County on long credit, and sat down to make a living by the joint efforts of his profession and husbandry. With these he hastened to pay for his place and add to the two-room house in which he and his young city-bred wife started life. In 1873, he moved to the neighborhood of Mars Bluff, and in 1877 to Florence, where he resided until his death.

Being a great student in his profession, he became prominent in the medical circles in his State and in the South. He was elected President of the State Medical Association in 1887, and at the expiration of his term was appointed by the Governor a member of the State Board of Health, to fill he vacancy caused by the death, in 1887 of Dr. Frank F. Gary, the President. In 1895, upon the death of Dr. Ed Frazier, the Secretary of the Board, and practically its administrative officer, Dr. Evans was elected to that position. In this capacity he was instrumental in obtaining the passage of laws for the development and classification of vital statistics and the establishment of local township boards of health, and he was the author of the bills introduced for those purposes. It was through his untiring efforts that laws for the enforcing of sanitation and the regulation of infectious and contagious diseases, with adequate appropriations for their efficient enforcement, were passed. The reports of vital statistics, contained in his annual report, were fuller and more complete than those of any other Southern State.

Dr. Evans wrote voluminously upon matters pertaining to his profession, and his writings appear in the journals of various societies to which he belonged. Notably among these are articles on "Puerpal Fever" and "The Sanitary Uses of Plants and Flowers", read before the South Carolina Medical Association: "Shock", "Multiple Cancer" and "Uses of Normal Saline Solution in Shock", read before the Southern Surgical and Gynecological Society, at their respective meetings in Louisville, KY, Charleston, SC, and Nashville, TN. A number of health tracts, issued by the State Board of Health, and now introduced into the school course of every public school in the State, upon "Typhoid Fever", "Diphtheria", "Consumption, and Methods of Prevention", "Cholera", "Prevention of Infectious and Contagious Diseases", and many other subjects, are the product of his pen. He was also a member of the "American Medical Association", "National Conference of State and Provincial Boards of Health", "Pan American Medical Congress", "American Social Science Association" and the "Institute of Art, Science and Letters", by invitation extended in recognition of distinction attained by him in Medicine. He was also a member of the United Confederate Veterans, United Confederate Surgeons and South Carolina Chapter of Sons of the Revolution.

Dr. Evans was a man of modesty and reserve, his manners gentle, gracious and refined---a gentleman of the old Southern school---with a genuine unobtrusive piety, a true love of honor, and a hatred of anything small, sordid and mean." - History of Nathaniel Evans of Catfish Creek