The slim, willowy girl, with masses of brown hair coiled in the funnel depths of a poke bonnet, a long check apron and a pair of tin buckets, became the typical guardian angel of the nearby hospitals.

She was amanuensis, as well as nurse, cook and general purveyor of light and comfort, and she sent many a cheering letter to waiting hearts at home, and never was the power of her glowing pen used more nobly and helpfully than when, forced to write the last dread message of all, it wove into the sorrowful words a golden thread of love and faith and hope.

In the pauses of her work she wrote most of her war-novel, “Macaria,” which, to a great extent, shared the uncertainties and excitements of the period.  It was published in 1864 by West & Johnson, of Richmond, being printed on wrapping paper, and soon became a favorite with the Southern soldiers, who probably found in it more human nature and more of the logic of possible events than it revealed to the general reader, their own experience in those days having led them to grave doubts as to the accuracy of the philosophic theory that not all conceivable things are possible.  At that time it stood to reason that the kind of literature popular in Southern camps would not appeal forcibly to the approval of the Northern army, and a Federal officer captured and burned all the copies of “Macaria” that he could find.

Miss Evans contrived to slip a copy of her new book across the lines to a publisher friend who, being unable at that time to bring out a new edition, took it to the J.B.  Lippincott Company and arranged for its publication.  Immediately afterward it was found that another publisher had come into possession of a copy and had an edition of five thousand ready to issue but, upon inquiry, expressed his intention of paying no royalty to the author.  Through the efforts of Mr. Lippincott he was induced to allow a royalty.  Miss Evans afterward wrote to her friend: 

I have always felt profoundly grateful to Mr. Lippincott, but fate has never indulged me in an opportunity of adequately thanking him for his generous and chivalrous action in behalf of an unknown rebel, who at that period was nursing Confederate soldiers in a hospital established near “Camp Beulah.”

In telling me of this she said that the kindness of Mr. Lippincott did not surprise her, as she remembered with gratitude the generosity of the Lippincott Company in regard to Southern obligations at the opening of the war.

With the beautiful voice which so enchanted me she once took captive General Bragg’s army on Lookout Mountain.  With her mother she had gone to visit her brother, Captain Howard Evans, just before the battle of Chickamauga.  It chanced that he had been sent to the front before they arrived, but they were hospitably received and given a hut on the slope.  At midnight they were awakened by steps and whispers and upon inquiry found that their unexpected visitors