Confederate Reunion, 1900 (Louisville, KY)

From May 30 to June 6, 1900, a Confederate Reunion was held in Louisville, KY. An estimated 100,000 visitors attended the reunion, including Mingo Evans, heralded as a Negro hero from Alabama. He had paid his own way to the reunion, traveling with the veterans of Camp Horace King.

Mingo, enslaved by the Evans family, accompanied Joe Evans to Virginia in 1861 with the 9th Alabama. Joe was killed in the first battle of Manassas, and Mingo took his place.

Mingo was injured, then discharged from the military and sent home, taking with him the skull of a Yankee soldier. When Union soldiers came for the skull, Mingo hid in the mountains until the end of the Civil War.

Mingo Evans was included in the 1866 Morgan County, AL state census (Ancestry). He and two females were in the household. He is also listed in the 1867 Alabama voter registration book, vol. 1, p. 5; and in the 1870 U.S. Census as a farmer, husband of Manda Evans, and father of Anna Evans.

Mingo Evans's birth year was not known for certain; different years are given in the 1870 Census and the 1880 Census.

For more, see the Mingo Evans article in The Adair County News, 6/6/1900, p.  2, col. 3; A. Shaw, "The Confederate Reunion at Louisville," The American Monthly Review of Reviews, 1900, vol. 22, Jul-Dec, pp. 20-21; and Craig McNutt, "1900 United Confederate Veterans Reunion Was Hosted in Louisville."