Slavery Men -- Simkins

Lawyer and teacher, William Stewart Simkins was born in Edgefield, South Carolina on August 25, 1842. He entered the Citadel, in the South Carolina Military Academy, in 1856. Overtime in the military he was commissioned a first lieutenant of artillery in the Confederate Army and served throughout the Civil War. He oversaw a battery during the First Battle of Charleston Harbor on April 7, 1863 and he is mentioned on September 19, 1863 as the inspector general for General Hagood. After he retired as colonel in the army of Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina in 1865, Simkins then moved to Flordia where is brother was and organizaed the Flordia Klu Klux Klan! However he did not stop there, Simkins was admitted to the bar and practiced Law in Texas with his brother. In 1899, Simkins found himself in Austin and joined the Law Faculty of the University of Texas and was known the be the most colorful character ever to be connected with UT Law. The current mascot of the University of Texas school of Law, Peregrinus, came from his course on Equity!  With Simkin's long white hair, he kept his image as an unrepentant Confederate, delivering an annual lecture on Thanksgiving in which he criticized the North and  defended the South. He had several publications that became standard textbooks not only in Texas but in other Law Schools as well. William Simkins, was a member of the state bar of Texas and was also a Mason and a member of the Episcopalian Church. As many accomplishments he had made (good or bad) he became professor emeritus in 1923, ad continued to lecture unitl he died in 1929. Before he died, he gave portions of his private law library to the university.

William stewart Simkins was an important part of the University of Texas. His name, however, was removed  in 2010 from a dormitory named after him because of his relations to the Florida KKK and is now currently Creekside Residence Hall.