Ira Hobart Evans

Ira Hobart Evans was born on April 11, 1844, in Piermont, New Hampshire, the son of Ira and Emeline Hobart Evans. He spent part of his youth in Barre, Vermont, where he attended public schools. His life would eventually connect several major chapters of nineteenth-century American history: the Civil War, the service of African American troops in the Union Army, Reconstruction in Texas, railroad development, banking, education, and public service.

When the American Civil War was still in its early stages, Evans left civilian life for military service. In July 1862, at the age of eighteen, he enlisted in the Union Army and entered the 10th Vermont Infantry as a Private.

His decision placed him in the United States Army during a period when the conflict was rapidly expanding in scale. The young soldier began his career at the lowest enlisted level, but his ability and leadership soon brought him advancement beyond the ranks.

In 1863, Evans received a commission as a First Lieutenant. His military career subsequently became closely connected with the United States Colored Troops, the African American regiments organized by the Union after federal policy increasingly permitted Black men to enter military service.

Evans served with the 9th U.S. Colored Troops before later becoming an officer in the 116th U.S. Colored Infantry. The service of these regiments formed an important part of the Union war effort. African American enlisted soldiers fought under officers such as Evans at a time when they faced not only the ordinary dangers of combat but also severe discrimination and, in some cases, greater danger if captured by Confederate forces.

Evans advanced to Captain and took command of Company B of the 116th U.S. Colored Infantry. Captain was the rank he held during the action for which he would eventually receive the Medal of Honor.

By early 1865, the Union armies had placed increasing pressure on the Confederate defenses around Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia. For months the opposing forces had occupied extensive lines of trenches, forts, roads, and defensive works while Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant attempted to break Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.

The beginning of April brought the decisive phase of the Petersburg Campaign.

On April 2, 1865, Union forces launched major attacks against the Confederate defensive system. The fighting around Petersburg and Hatcher's Run formed part of the final breakthrough that would force Lee to abandon Petersburg and Richmond.

Captain Ira Hobart Evans was serving with Company B of the 116th U.S. Colored Infantry during these operations.

At Hatcher's Run, Evans undertook an exceptionally dangerous mission.

Important information about the Confederate position was needed, but obtaining it required someone to move into the exposed ground separating the opposing forces. Enemy fire made the area extremely hazardous.

Evans voluntarily went forward.

Rather than directing another soldier to assume the risk, he personally passed between the opposing lines while under heavy Confederate fire.

Moving through the space between hostile armies exposed him to direct enemy observation and fire. There was little protection available, and discovery could have resulted in his immediate death, serious injury, or capture.

Despite the danger, Evans successfully completed the mission.

He obtained important military information and returned with intelligence valuable to Union operations.

The significance of his conduct rested not merely in surviving enemy fire but in voluntarily accepting a dangerous reconnaissance mission that directly supported the larger military objective. His action combined personal courage with practical battlefield intelligence gathering.

The events of April 2 proved decisive. Union forces broke through the Petersburg defenses, and the Confederate position became impossible to maintain.

Lee ordered the evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond and began moving his army westward. The retreat initiated the Appomattox Campaign, during which Union forces relentlessly pursued the Army of Northern Virginia.

Only one week after Evans's action at Hatcher's Run, Lee surrendered his army to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.

Evans's act of courage therefore occurred during the opening hours of the final campaign that brought the principal Confederate army in Virginia to surrender.

His wartime advancement continued as well. In March 1865, Evans received the rank of Brevet Major in recognition of his service. Brevet Major became his highest verified military rank, while Captain remained his rank at the time of his Medal of Honor action.

Evans also served as Acting Assistant Adjutant General of the Twenty-fifth Army Corps, Army of the James. This staff responsibility placed him within an organization that contained large numbers of African American soldiers and played an important role during the closing period of the war and the immediate postwar occupation.

Following Lee's surrender, Evans's military service did not immediately end.

He was selected as one of the officers of the honor guard associated with the funeral observances for President Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated only days after the Confederate surrender.

Lincoln's death transformed the atmosphere of Union victory into national mourning. For Evans, participation in the funeral honor guard connected his military career directly with one of the most solemn events in American history.

After the principal fighting ended, Evans and elements of the Twenty-fifth Corps were sent to Texas as part of the occupation force under Major General Philip H. Sheridan.

The mission reflected continuing federal concerns about conditions along the Mexican border, the enforcement of Union authority, and the transition from war to Reconstruction.

Evans served in several administrative positions in the Brownsville area of Texas. His responsibilities during this period extended beyond battlefield command and introduced him to the state that would become the center of his civilian life.

In September 1866, he was transferred to New Orleans. His long wartime and occupation service finally ended when he was discharged from the United States Army on January 31, 1867.

Evans left military service having made an extraordinary progression. He had entered the Army as an eighteen-year-old Private in 1862, received a commission, commanded African American soldiers as a Captain, performed an act of exceptional courage under enemy fire, served in an important staff position, and attained the rank of Brevet Major.

After leaving the Army, Evans returned to Texas rather than going back permanently to New England.

In 1867, he settled north of Corpus Christi and attempted to establish himself in the livestock business. The venture failed after he lost his investment through the dishonesty of a business partner.

Evans then entered federal Reconstruction service with the Freedmen's Bureau at Wharton, Texas.

The Freedmen's Bureau had been established to assist formerly enslaved people and other civilians during the difficult transition from slavery and war to freedom and peacetime society. Its responsibilities included matters involving labor, education, relief, and legal protection.

Evans's wartime experience commanding Black troops influenced his later interest in the rights and advancement of African Americans.

He eventually resigned from the Freedmen's Bureau on January 31, 1868, after becoming dissatisfied with what he considered ineffective administration by some of his superiors.

He subsequently worked for the Internal Revenue Service, first at Eagle Pass and later at Corpus Christi.

Evans then entered Texas politics during Reconstruction.

In 1869, encouraged by Republican gubernatorial candidate Edmund J. Davis, Evans ran for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives. He won election representing the Western District of Texas.

His political rise was extraordinarily rapid.

In 1870, at only twenty-five years old, Ira Hobart Evans was elected Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. He became the youngest person to hold that office up to that time.

As Speaker and legislator, Evans became particularly interested in the development of a statewide railroad system, which he viewed as essential to the economic growth and integration of Texas.

His political career, however, also demonstrated his willingness to oppose his own party when he believed legislation was improper.

In 1870, the Texas legislature passed an election measure that postponed the next election. Evans considered the measure contrary to the state constitution and strongly opposed it.

His position placed him in conflict with influential members of his own Republican Party. Although Democrats and a small number of Republicans supported his objection, a Republican caucus eventually moved against him.

Evans was removed from the speakership.

He nevertheless completed his term as a representative and remained in the legislature until its adjournment in December 1871. Afterward, he left active political life and concentrated primarily on business.

His post-political career became closely linked with the enormous expansion of Texas railroads and land development during the late nineteenth century.

In January 1872, Evans became general manager of the Texas Land Company of Houston. The following year he became secretary of the Houston and Great Northern Railroad Company.

When that railroad was consolidated with the International Railroad, Evans became secretary of the International-Great Northern Railroad Company in 1874.

He later served as a director of the railroad for more than three decades, remaining connected with it from 1875 until 1908.

Evans also became a major figure in Texas land development. In 1880, he became president of the New York and Texas Land Company, Limited.

The company controlled millions of acres of Texas land, and Evans supervised a large operation devoted to locating, surveying, mapping, managing, and selling property across the state.

His business activities placed him among the individuals involved in transforming the transportation and land economy of postwar Texas.

Evans's interests expanded into banking and urban transportation as well.

In 1890, he helped establish the Austin National Bank and became one of its directors. He remained associated with the bank for the rest of his life.

He also served as receiver of the Austin Rapid Transit Railway Company beginning in 1897 and later became president and director of the Austin Electric Railway Company.

While Evans built a successful business career, the action he had performed at Hatcher's Run in 1865 had not been forgotten.

More than twenty-six years after the Civil War ended, the United States formally recognized his battlefield courage.

On March 24, 1892, Ira Hobart Evans was presented with the Medal of Honor for his action at Hatcher's Run, Virginia, on April 2, 1865.

The Medal of Honor had been established during the Civil War. Congress authorized the Army Medal of Honor in 1862 at a time when the United States did not possess the extensive hierarchy of military valor decorations that developed during later generations.

Evans's official citation preserved the essential facts of his achievement: he voluntarily passed between the opposing lines while under heavy enemy fire and obtained important military information.

The wording is concise, but it identifies the two elements that made his action exceptional. Evans voluntarily accepted the danger, and the intelligence he obtained had direct military value.

Because his Medal of Honor was presented on March 24, 1892, the correct historical representation for the project database is Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1892.

No clasp, star, bar, oak leaf cluster, or other device has been verified with Evans's Medal of Honor. His verified decoration therefore consists of one Medal of Honor without additional devices.

The award came during a period when Evans was already a prominent Texas businessman and civic figure. His Medal of Honor linked his increasingly successful civilian career with the military service that had first brought him to Texas decades earlier.

Evans also devoted considerable attention to education and the advancement of African Americans.

Beginning in 1881, he served on the board of trustees of Tillotson College in Austin, an institution established to educate African American students after the Civil War.

His involvement continued for nearly four decades.

From 1909 to 1920, Evans served as president of the college's board of trustees. He donated substantial personal funds to support the institution, including money intended to provide students with practical construction training.

A campus building was named in recognition of his contribution.

His commitment to education reflected a continuity between his military and civilian life. During the Civil War he had served as an officer commanding Black soldiers; after the war, he supported institutions intended to expand educational opportunities for African Americans.

Evans also became active in religious and civic organizations. He participated in Congregational and Presbyterian institutions and served in leadership roles within church organizations during his years in Texas.

His Austin home also became associated with another important intellectual development. A group of individuals interested in preserving and studying the history of Texas met there, helping create the environment from which the Texas State Historical Association eventually emerged.

On July 13, 1871, Evans married Frances Abi Hurlbut of Upper Alton, Illinois. The couple had three sons. Their marriage later ended in divorce in 1917.

In 1920, Evans married Jessie M. Stewart.

By this point, he was an elderly veteran whose lifetime had stretched from the antebellum United States through the Civil War, Reconstruction, industrial development, and the First World War era.

In 1921, Evans moved to San Diego, California.

He died there on April 19, 1922, only eight days after his seventy-eighth birthday.

His remains were returned to Vermont, and he was buried at Berlin Corners Cemetery in Berlin, Vermont, reconnecting him in death with the New England region where his youth and military enlistment had begun.

Ira Hobart Evans left an unusually broad legacy.

He began the Civil War as a teenage Private and rose to Captain and Brevet Major. He commanded African American soldiers, carried out a dangerous reconnaissance mission under heavy Confederate fire, participated in the final operations against Petersburg, served in the postwar occupation of Texas, and was selected for duties connected with Abraham Lincoln's funeral.

His civilian life was equally varied. He became Speaker of the Texas House at twenty-five, challenged his own political allies on constitutional grounds, helped develop major railroad and land enterprises, participated in banking and urban transportation, supported African American higher education, and contributed to civic and historical institutions in Texas.

Yet the defining official recognition of his military career remained the act he performed on April 2, 1865.

At Hatcher's Run, while serving as Captain of Company B, 116th U.S. Colored Infantry, Ira Hobart Evans voluntarily moved between hostile lines under heavy enemy fire and returned with important military information.

Twenty-seven years later, on March 24, 1892, the United States formally recognized that courage by presenting him with the Medal of Honor.

Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1892 remains Ira Hobart Evans's verified military decoration and the defining official recognition of his battlefield courage during the final days of the American Civil War.