Timrod eventually became poet laureate of the Confederacy. Thereafter, Rivers accepted the position of Professor Emeritus of Ancient Languages at South Carolina College, which was later to evolve into the University of South Carolina. Rivers was an eyewitness to the Burning of Columbia by Sherman's army, and this provided the background for his novel "Eunice: A Tale of Reconstruction Times in South Carolina". The novel is very closely based on fact, and opens with the burning of the capital 17 February 1865. Later career When South Carolina College reorganised as the University of South Carolina in 1865, Rivers returned to the faculty as professor of ancient languages and literature. His former pupil and friend, Henry Timrod, poet laureate of the Confederacy, once the wealthiest citizen of Charleston, had died a pauper (even being predeceased by his little son) and there were no funds to erect a memorial over the poet's grave. Rivers gave a lecture on Timrod's poetry which he published in 1876 as "A Little Book" to obtain means for placing a memorial stone upon the grave of the poet Henry Timrod. In it was the beginning of a poem called 'Eldred' which Rivers would later (1904) turn into a novel in verse. When the University of South Carolina began enrolling African Americans in 1873, Rivers resigned his position and accepted the presidency of Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. He was president of Washington College for fourteen years, and retired to 23 Calvert Street in Baltimore, where he died on 22 June 1909. Students, faculty, and alumni met the train in Columbia bearing his body, and attended his burial in Elmwood Cemetery. Other writings Other writings of William James Rivers include, "College Addresses, Et Cetera". His "Historical Sketch" was long regarded as the definitive work on South Carolina history, and was famous among historiographers for the thitherto unprecedented scale of its use of unpublished sources. Rivers also continued to contribute to the alumnae bulletin as late as 1903, when he revealed that he had once declined the post of Treasurer of the Confederate States in Richmond due to his inability to pay the bond himself. Despite a rich friend having offered to put up the bond for him, Rivers refused, citing what had happened to his father when he had stood surety for another. Christopher Memminger did accept the post which Rivers had refused. Also the South Caroliniana Library