William Stewart Simkins (August 25, 1842 – February 27, 1929) was a Confederate soldier and professor of law at the University of Texas at Austin. While a Citadel cadet, he quite possibly fired the first shot of the American Civil War. Early life Simkins was born on August 25, 1842 in Edgefield, South Carolina. His parents were Eldred James and Pattie Simkins. He entered the Citadel, a South Carolina military academy, in 1856. Civil War At daybreak on January 9, 1861, Simkins saw the signal from a guard boat, and sounded the alarm in the sand battery, alerting his fellow Citadel 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. The Daily Courier at first said he had fired the first shot, although the official account later blamed a local youth named G. E. Haynesworth. Simkins once said he only loaded the gun which fired the first shot, though many historians believe that he actually fired it, too. The cadets were graduated early on April 9. On the morning of April 12, 1861, Simkins, on duty near Charleston Harbor, participated in the bombardment of Fort Sumter, the first battle of the war. He was commissioned as a first lieutenant of artillery. He oversaw a battery during the First Battle of Charleston Harbor on April 7, 1863. He is mentioned on September 19, 1863 as the inspector general for General Hagood. Simkins surrendered as a colonel in the army of Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina in 1865. 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. Simkins married Lizzie Ware on February 10, 1870. They had five children. 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. 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. Professorship Simkins joined the law faculty of the University of Texas in 1899. Peregrinus, the mascot of the University of Texas School of Law, came from