William Stewart Simkins

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William Stewart Simkins

Photographed as a young cadet
Born 25 August 1842
Edgefield, South Carolina
Died 27 February 1929
Austin, Texas
Occupation Professor of law
Spouse Lizzie Ware

William Stewart Simkins (1842–1929) was a professor emeritus of law at the University of Texas at Austin.[1] As a young military cadet, he quite possibly fired the first shot of the American Civil War.[2]

Contents

[edit] Early life

His parents were Eldred James and Pattie Simkins. He entered the Citadel, a South Carolina military academy, in 1856.[3]

[edit] Role in U.S Civil War

At daybreak on 9 January 1861, Simkins saw the signal from a guard boat, and sounded the alarm in the sand battery, alerting his fellow cadets to the arrival of the Union ship the Star of the West, which was attempting to ferry supplies to Fort Sumter. The cadets fired the first shots of the American Civil War.[4] The Daily Courier initially credited him with the first shot, although the official account later gave the credit to a hometown boy named G. E. Haynesworth.[5]

The cadets were graduated early on 9 April and pressed into service in defense of South Carolina.[4] On the morning of 12 April 1861, Simkins, on duty near Charleston Harbor, participated in the bombardment of Fort Sumter, the first battle of the war.[1][6][7]

He was commissioned as a first lieutenant of artillery and served throughout the war.[3] He officered a battery during the First Battle of Charleston Harbor on 7 April 1863.[8] He is mentioned on 19 September 1863 as the inspector general for General Hagood.[9] Simkins surrendered as a colonel in the army of Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina in 1865.[3]

[edit] Post war activities

After the war he went to Monticello, Florida, where he and his brother, Eldred J. Simkins, organized the Florida Ku Klux Klan.[3]

Simkins married Lizzie Ware on 10 February 1870. They had five children.[3]

Simkins was admitted to the bar in 1870 and moved to Texas in 1873 where he practiced law at Corsicana. In 1885 he and his brother began a practice in Dallas.[3] In 1894 he was, alongside Texas Attorney General Charles Allen Culberson, an appellant in two cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, Reagan v. Mercantile Trust Co. and Reagan v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.[10]

[edit] Professorship

Simkins joined the law faculty of the University of Texas in 1899.[3]

Peregrinus, the mascot of the University of Texas School of Law, came from his course on Equity, after a drowsing student, Russell Savage, awoke halfway through Simkins's discussion of Roman law to the word "peregrinus" scrawled on the blackboard. Not understanding the context to Roman citizenship or a type of praetor, Savage made the first doodle of the four legged duck-billed creature.[11]

Simkins was himself nicknamed "Old Peregrinoos." First-year law students were known as "Simkins's Jackasses," and later by the initialism J.A.[3]

His publications became standard textbooks in law schools in and beyond Texas. The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee conferred an honorary doctorate of civil law upon him in 1913.[3]

He became professor emeritus in 1923, but continued to lecture once a week until his death. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Dallas.

The University's Simkins Hall dormitory is named after him.[12]

[edit] Partial bibliography

Wikisource
Wikisource has original works written by or about:
  • Equity as Applied in the State and Federal Courts of Texas (1903)
  • Contracts and Sales (1905)
  • Administration of Estates in Texas (1908)
  • A Federal Suit in Equity (1909)
  • A Federal Suit at Law (1912)
  • Title by Limitations in Texas (1924)

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Monday, Mar. 11, 1929 (notices). Time Magazine (1929-03-11).
  2. ^ Harvey, Bill (2003). Texas Cemeteries: The Resting Places of Famous, Infamous, and Just Plain Interesting Texans. University of Texas Press, 101. ISBN 0292734662. 
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i The Handbook of Texas Online: SIMKINS, WILLIAM STEWART. Texas State Historical Association (2001-06-06).
  4. ^ a b Conrad, James Lee (2004). The Young Lions: Confederate Cadets at War. University of South Carolina Press, 32. ISBN 157003575X. 
  5. ^ Badders, Hurley E. (2006). Remembering South Carolina's Old Pendleton District. The History Press. ISBN 1596291974. 
  6. ^ Snowden, Yates; Harry Gardner Cutler (1920). History of South Carolina II. Chicago and New York: The Lewis Publishing Company, 861. 
  7. ^ His brief Times obituary puts him as firing the opening mortar here, an act usually ascribed to Edmund Ruffin, or Henry S. Farley; it seems likely sources have confused this with the January events.
  8. ^ Moore, Frank; Edward Everett (1863). The Rebellion Record: A Diary of American Events sixth. New York: G. P. Putnam, 513–4. 
  9. ^ Manigault, Edward (1996). in Warren Ripley: Siege Train: The Journal of a Confederate Artilleryman in the Defense of Charleston. University of South Carolina Press, 45. ISBN 1570031274. 
  10. ^ REAGAN v. MERCANTILE TRUST CO, 154 U.S. 413 (1894). U.S. Supreme Court (1894-05-26).
  11. ^ Benedict, Harry Yandell (2005). Peregrinusings: A Queer Title for Some Moronic Essays. Kessinger Publishing, ix. ISBN 1417997613. 
  12. ^ Durbin, John R.; Teresa Palomo Acosta (2001-01-18). In Memoriam: William S. Simkins. University of Texas Faculty Council.