If Nathan is the bravest and best General in the C.S., if not in the world, he is at the same time about the best drinker, the most eloquent swearer (I should say voluble) and the most magnificent bragger I ever saw.=========
Colonel (and Oregon Senator) Edward Baker was dead. Bodies of Union soldiers littered the Potomac River as far down as Chain Bridge. And after dual, devastating defeats--in July along Bull Run and now at Balls Bluff--Baker’s outraged colleagues in Congress formed the Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War.
But in the victorious Confederacy, the South Carolina General Assembly decided to celebrate valor, passing a “concurrent resolution” citing one of their own, Brigadier General Nathan “Shanks” Evans, “for conspicuous gallantry at Leesburg.” As a token of their esteem for their heroic native son, the General Assembly commissioned James Allan & Company of Charleston to strike a gold medal for Evans.[1]
It would prove the high point of Evans’ service to the Confederacy. Yes, he had led the victorious Southern forces at Balls Bluff. And yes, at Manassas, he had redeployed in time to confront the enemy’s turning of the Confederate left, an action one historian said “went far towards saving the day for the South.”[2]
Yet despite the accolades, Evans was quite the rascal. Gruff and roughhewn to the point of insubordination, his piercing stare and full beard aided his bullying. Noted one of Gen. James Longstreet’s staff officers:
=========The first decorated soldier of the Civil War?
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