NIC history prof, Civil War authority publishes article
North Idaho College history professor James Jewell’s article “We Can Now Rejoice” will appear in the April edition of America’s Civil War.
North Idaho College history professor James Jewell will publish the story of an Ohio teacher turned Union lieutenant in the April edition of the magazine America’s Civil War.
Jewell’s article, titled ‘We Can Now Rejoice,’ chronicles the two years of wartime service by Thomas L. Evans who served in the 96th Ohio Infantry and fought during the Battle for Vicksburg, which the article discusses in detail based on Evans’ wartime letters and a copy of his diary.
Evans’ documents, which are housed in Eastern Washington University’s archives and special collections department in Cheney, made a surprising journey to the historical archives.
Evans, who spent most of the remainder of his post-war life in Illinois and died in 1916, likely never made it to the American West. His journals and letters traveled west with his daughter, who inherited the documents before moving to Washington in the early 1900s. The papers were then passed to Evans’ granddaughter, a teacher who donated the collection to EWU in 1972.
Evans’ documents’ journey wasn’t uncommon as Civil War veterans – or their descendants who inherited their historical documents and items – came west with American development. Jewell said he included a one-page addition to the article detailing the source material’s story in part to encourage people to look around for similar documents.
“These sorts of things are out there. You just have to look for them,” Jewell said.
Jewell’s article on Evans isn’t his first. He has published 19 articles, a chapter in a book and a book titled ‘On Duty in the Pacific Northwest during the Civil War’ during his 18-year tenure as an NIC professor, not to mention an additional nine articles prior to coming to NIC.
And it won’t be his last either.
Jewell has contracts for two more books related to the development of the Pacific Northwest during the Civil War period and to the military administration of the West during the war. The books have anticipated release dates in 2023 and 2024. He, along with his friend and collaborator Eugene S. Van Sickle, will also present a lecture on the 1863 battle at Fort Wagner on April 8 via Zoom at the Kenosha Civil War Museum in Wisconsin.
Jewell said his study of the Civil War started with a general interest in history after his grandfather, who was a voracious reader of history, loaned him books while Jewell recovered from a car accident as a teenager. After he graduated from EWU with his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history, Jewell went back east to study Frederick Douglass’ sons and their service in the 54th Massachusetts, an all-black volunteer Union regiment, at West Virginia University but instead found himself studying how the American West was impacted by the Civil War.
Jewell said, though the topic is a niche in American history, the effect of the Civil War on the West is monumental.
“The Civil War seems fairly detached to somebody living in Idaho or Washington,” Jewell said. “The founding generation creates the nation; the Civil War generation recreates the nation and changes the trajectory of the county. The West mattered to the war, and more importantly, the war mattered to the West. You don’t see western development the way that it was without the war.”
‘We Can Now Rejoice’ will be available in the April edition of the magazine America’s Civil War.
For more information, contact NIC Professor of History James Jewell at (208) 769-3326 or james.jewell@nic.edu.
The April edition of the magazine America’s Civil War features an article titled “We Can Now Rejoice” by North Idaho College history professor James Jewell.
Story and photos by Megan Snodgrass mpsnodgrass@nic.edu
Posted: Monday, April 4, 2022
