William James Rivers (18 July 1822 – 22 June 1909) was a famous and important Southern writer, educator, and a published author before, during, and after the Confederate States of America. He has recently been re-published, his novel "Eunice: A Tale of Reconstruction Times in South Carolina" having been published as recently as 2006 by the University of South Carolina and his unpublished manuscripts forming an important part of the permanent manuscript collection of USC. Tara Courtney McKinney, editor of the 2006 republication of "Eunice", has done a great deal of biographical research as well. Childhood and family background William James Rivers was born 18 July 1822 in Charleston, South Carolina. His father, John David Rivers, was an English immigrant who had kept a residence on Queen Street until he was ruined when a friend, for whom he had signed as surety on a loan, defaulted. John David Rivers lost his all, his house on Queen Street, and his life within the year, dying 29 December 1831. His widow, Eliza Ridgewood (Ms. McKinney mistakenly spells it as Richwood) Rivers placed her two sons—William James and David Selvester—in the Charleston Orphan House. She moved into that facility a year later, serving as a nurse there until her own death in 1843. William James Rivers's brother, David Selvester Rivers, volunteered and served in the Confederate army as a sergeant. William James Rivers, who had begun his education as a scholarship student at the Grammar School of the College of Charleston and had become a full professor by the time of the American Civil War, was exempted from military service, due to his profession. Early career Rivers's "Sketch of the History of South Carolina to the Close of the Proprietary Government by the Revolution of 1719", published in 1856, cemented his position in the Charleston literary world. Additionally, Rivers founded an Academy for Boys on Cooper Street, the building of which still stands and forms a portion of a guided tour of Charleston, in which ancient languages were emphasised, and which attracted the sons of Charleston's elite. By 1850 professors at South Carolina College recommended Rivers's preparatory school for boys as "one of the best in the State"(Robert Rogers to Rivers, December 19, 1850, Rivers Papers, SCL.) The wealthiest planter in Charleston was a Mr. Dimrud from Prussia, who sent his grandson Henry Timrod—the surname was anglicised from Dimrud—to Rivers's academy, and Henry