Jones: In the early days of April, 1865, when General Grant was moving on Petersburg, my division (the Second of the 25th Corps) held a portion of the Union line near Hatcher's Run.

Confederate deserters were numerous, most of them reaching the rifle pits late at night or about daybreak, where, for their safety, they were detained until nightfall.

Dismounting he passed rapidly over the ridge in front of the division, being at that time the only Union soldier in view from the Confederate line.

It was a gallant feat.On April 17, 1865 Evans was one of the officers in the honor guard of President Abraham Lincoln's funeral cortège.

He remained on active duty after the war, serving in Brownsville, Texas as a member General Philip H. Sheridan's occupation force.

Deciding to take part in the Reconstruction of Texas, he started a ranch near Corpus Christi, but lost his investment through the dishonesty of his partner.

At the urging of Republican gubernatorial candidate Edmund Jackson Davis, in 1869 Evans ran for and won a seat in the Texas House of Representatives.

Unlike most Republicans who were active in post-Civil War Reconstruction, after leaving politics Evans did not return to the northern states, instead settling in Austin and beginning a business career.

The college's Evans Industrial Building, constructed in 1912 and refurbished in 1984, was named for him and has been designated a Texas Historical Site.

Evans was active in both the Congregational and Presbyterian churches and served as president of the American Home Missionary Society.

Citation: (presented on March 24, 1892) For extraordinary heroism on 2 April 1865, while serving with Company B, 116th Colored Infantry, in action at Hatcher's Run, Virginia.