Biography

One of the first writers to depict competent female protagonists, she produced multiple best sellers during the last half of the 19th. century. Raised initially in what is now Columbus, Georgia, with wealth and privilege, she moved to San Antonio, Texas, in 1845 when her family had to relocate due to bankruptcy. A voracious reader who essentially educated herself, Miss Augusta wrote her first novel, "Inez: A Tale of the Alamo", in 1850 as a Christmas gift for her father, with anonymous publication following in 1855. Her family having by then moved to Mobile, Alabama, to escape the sectional strife of Texas, her second book, "Beulah" (1859), established her as Alabama's first professional writer and sold 22,000 copies therby easing the Evans' financial plight. The work also set her lifelong pattern of supporting female education by using strong, well educated characters. When the Civil War came she gave her full support to the Confederacy, serving as both a nurse and a propagandist. Miss Augusta nursed the wounded at Fort Morgan near Mobile, built sandbanks, visited the troops at Chickamauga, and established a hospital called Camp Beulah. Her novel "Macaria", reportedly written by candlelight while on hospital duty, was published at Richmond in 1863 and was smuggled north for distribution among both civilians and Union troops in an effort to undermine support for the war. Her effort was successful enough for General George Thomas to confiscate and burn copies, but unknown to her it was also published in New York with the profits held in trust until after the confilct. The novel "St. Elmo" (1866) proved to be her magnum opus, selling over a million copies and making her the richest female American author until Edith Wharton. The title was used to name hotels, ships, and even a cigar brand, while the book itself has been adapted for both the theater and motion pictures. Miss Augusta married wealthy Confederate Colonel Lorenzo Wilson (deceased 1892) in 1868, taking the name by which she was thereafter known and establishing herself as the first lady of Mobile society for the rest of her days. Over her career she published nine novels, the final, "Devota", coming in 1907. Miss Augusta died of a heart attack; today a Mobile school and a Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Tampa, Florida, carry her name. Though popular in their time her works were marked by rather complicated word usage and sentence structure and thus are now familiar primarily to scholars. [Bio by: Bob Hufford on Find A Grave]

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