William Stewart Simkins William Stewart Simkins ( August 25 , 1842 – February 27 , 1929 ) was a Confederate soldier and professor of law at the University of Texas at Austin . As a military cadet , he quite possibly fired the first shot of the American Civil War . Early life . His parents were Eldred James and Pattie Simkins . He entered the Citadel , a South Carolina military academy , in 1856 . Role in U . S 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 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 . 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 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 . Simkins was himself nicknamed " Old Peregrinoos . " First - year law students were known as " Simkins ' s Jackasses , " and later by the initialism J . A . His publications became standard textbook s 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 . Simkins gave each Thanksgiving in which he decried Northern carpetbaggers who , he suggested , helped promote a culture of poverty among freed slaves , and proclaimed his belief that the South had overcome its racist past and had arisen once again as an economic powerhouse . He became professor emeritus in 1923 , but continued to lecture once a week until his death . He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Dallas . Legacy . Simkins Hall dormitory on the University ' s campus was for a time named in his honor . The two - story dormitory was constructed near Waller Creek in the 1950s . Next door to the law school where Professor Simkins made his intellectual mark , it was originally the law student dormitory , but later moved into common undergraduate use . In 2010 , UT changed the name to Creekside Residence Hall in the light of recently rediscovered disclosures of Simkins ' s role as the co - founder of the Florida Ku Klux Klan . University President William Powers , Jr . , endorsed the change on July 12 , 2010 . The regents also changed the name " Simkins Park " , a green space next to the dormitory which had been named for Simkins ' s brother , Eldred James Simkins of Corsicana , who served on the UT board from 1882 - 1893 and had reputed Klan ties . The African American trustee , Printice L . Gary ( born 1946 ) of Dallas , made the motion , approved unanimously , to delete the name " Simkins " from the dormitory : " From time to time we are reminded of ugly periods in our nation ' s history regarding civil rights . The history behind the name is not in line with today ' s University of Texas an its core values . " Gregory Vincent , UT vice president for diversity and community engagement , said that the Simkins Hall sign would be removed by July 16 .