1860-65 ALFRED L & WM C RIVES VA CONFEDERATE CIVIL WAR BOSTON FANCY > COBHAM +

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1860-65 ALFRED L & WM C RIVES VA CONFEDERATE CIVIL WAR BOSTON FANCY > COBHAM +:
$9.99

GREAT PAIR OF ENVELOPES ----- 1) STAMP POSTMARKED BOSTON MASS WITH STAR FANCY CANCEL, SENT TO \"ALFRED L RIVES ESQ, COBHAM, ALBEMARLE CO, VA.\" ALSO NOTE FROM ALFRED L RIVES AT LEFT IN HIS HAND NOTING SENDER AS \"W.C. RIVES JR ESQ, ANSWD 22 SEP 1865.\" SENT \"VIA ALEXANDIRA VA.\" GREAT ENVELOPE WITH HAND WRITING OF BOTH MEN (William Cabell Rives (May 4, 1793 – April 25, 1868) was an American lawyer, politician and diplomat from Albemarle County, Virginia. He represented Virginia as a Jackson Democrat in both the U.S. House and Senate and also served as the U.S. minister to France. His second son William Cabell Rives, Jr., (1825-1890) owned Cobham Park Estate. It was listed the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.) ----- OTHER SENT TO MRS ALFRED L RIVES, CARE JAMES B MACMURDO, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA. LEFT SIDE DATED 4/16/1860, SEE PHOTOS, , SHIPPING AND HANDLING IS $2.00 IN USA OR $3.00 FOREIGN. ALL ITEMS OVER $40.00 IN USA MUST BE INSURED AT BUYERS COST. ALL ITEMS OVER $80.00 FOREIGN MUST BE REGISTERED AT BUYERS COST. I COMBINE SHIPPING COSTS ON MULTIPLE ITEM TO SAVE YOU MONEY. CHECK MY VERY HIGH response !!!!! -- ALL LOTS WITH TOTAL OVER $30.00 TO CHINA OR ITALY MUST BE BE REGISTERED AT BUYERS COST. ----------- Alfred Landon Rives (born in March 25, 1830, Paris, France - February 27, 1903 Castle Hill, Virginia) was an American engineer. Alfred Rives was the son of William Cabell and Judith (Walker) Rives. His father, who was among the most distinguished citizens of Virginia, was the United States minister to France, and he also filled the same position in 1848.Rives was taught by private tutors until fourteen years of age, then became a student of Concord Academy. At the age of sixteen he entered the Virginia Military Institute, and graduated in two years, ranking sixth in a class of twenty-four.[1]Being proficient in engineering, he determined to adopt that as a profession, and in 1848 entered the University of Virginia, where he remained one session, then accompanied his father to France. After a year devoted to the study of mathematics and French, he successfully passed an examination for entrance in the Government Engineering School of France, \"Ecole des ponts et Chaussees.\" After graduation in 1854, he was offered a position upon the great French railroad, \"Du Nord,\" but instead returned to the United States, where he served in the engineering corps of the Virginia Midland railway.[1]Later Rives accepted a position in Washington under Captain Montgomery Meigs of the United States Engineering Corps. He served for a year as assistant engineer of the United States Capitol and Post Office buildings. He was appointed Secretary of the Interior under President Pierce, to report upon the best location for a bridge across the Potomac. He presented details and estimates for the project in the 1857 \"Congressional records\". The report was favorably received, and Rives was selected to make calculations and estimates for this Cabin John bridge, which was built under his supervision.[1]He returned to Virginia, his native state, upon its secession from the Union. Three days later he received the commission of captain of engineers from the state of Virginia, and was directed to report to Colonel Andrew Talcott, at that time chief engineer of the state. Rives was assigned to duty on the lower Virginia peninsula, and upon the resignation of Colonel Talcott was soon made acting chief engineer of the state of Virginia.[1]Later, Rives was appointed acting chief of the Engineer Bureau of the Confederate States, a position he held until the close of the Civil War. He was promoted successively to be major, lieutenant-colonel and colonel of engineers.[1]After the war he was offered a professorship in several institutions of learning, and also a good architectural position under the United States government, all of which he declined, preferring to try to recover his fortunes in Richmond as an engineer and architect. In 1868 was division engineer of the Chesapeake & Ohio railroad. In 1870 he was appointed chief engineer of the Mobile & Birmingham railroad. He was engineer in charge of the South & North Alabama railroad and part of the Louisville & Nashville system, which he completed in 1873. He was offered by Gen. William T. Sherman, for the Khedive of Egypt, the position of chief engineer of the civil works of Egypt, which position he declined to accept and of chief engineer and general superintendent of the Mobile & Ohio railroad.[1]In 1883, Rives became vice-president and general manager of the Richmond and Danville Railroad, now a part of the Southern railway System. In 1886, was appointed a member of the United States commissioned to inspect and receive on the part of the government forty miles of the Northern Pacific Railroad in the state of Washington, and the following year became general superintendent of the Panama Railroad, and while with that railroad went to Paris, and concluded a traffic agreement with the Canal Company. He presented to the canal commission a plan for the completion of the Panama Canal, in which he had always taken a great interest. In 1894, he communicated to the director of the canal a plan for the construction of a part at La Boca in the vicinity of Panama, which if constructed would tend greatly to facilitate and increase the traffic across the isthmus.[1]After resigning his position with the Panama railroad, he was made chief engineer of the Cape Cod Canal. He was also elected vice president, and was specially charged with the construction of the Vera Cruz & Pacific railroad in Mexico.He died at Castle Hill, February 27, 1903. His papers are held at Duke University.[2]Rives married Sadie MacMurdo, with whom he had three children: Amelia, who became a well-known author and wife of Prince Trubetskoy; Gertrude, the wife of Allen Potts, Esq.; and Miss Landon Cabell Rives (May 4, 1793 – April 25, 1868) was an American lawyer, politician and diplomat from Albemarle County, Virginia. He represented Virginia as a Jackson Democrat in both the U.S. House and Senate and also served as the U.S. minister to France. Rives was born at \"Union Hill\", the estate of his grandfather, Col. William Cabell, in Amherst County, Virginia. It was located on the James River in what is now Nelson County. His parents were Robert (1764–1845) and Margaret Cabell (c.1770–1815) Rives, and his brothers included Alexander Rives. He was a great-uncle of Alexander Brown, author of books on the early history of Virginia and a family history, The Cabells and their Kin (1895).[1]After private tutoring, Rives attended Hampden-Sydney College, followed by the College of William and Mary.He left Williamsburg to study law with Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, and in 1814 was admitted to the bar at Richmond. Rives began his law practice in Nelson County, but after marrying Judith Page Walker (1802–1882) in 1819, he moved to her estate Castle Hill, near Cobham in Albemarle County. This was his home for the remainder of his life.Rives\' political career began by serving in the state constitutional convention of 1816. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1817–19 for Nelson County, and again in 1822 for Albemarle County. In 1823 he was elected to the United States House of Representatives and served from 1823 to 1829. In 1829 he was appointed by Andrew Jackson as minister to France serving for 3 years. His name was presented as a candidate for the Democratic vice presidential nomination in 1835, but the nomination went to Richard M. Johnson.On his return from France, Rives was elected to the United States Senate. He would serve three terms, the last as a member of the Whig Party. From 1849 to 1853, he was again minister to France. In 1860, he endorsed the call for a Constitutional Union Party Convention, where he received most of Virginia\'s first ballot votes for President.Rives was a delegate to the February 1861 Peace Conference in Washington which sought to prevent the American Civil War. He spoke out against secession, but was loyal to Virginia when she did secede. He served in the Provisional Confederate Congress from 1861 to 1862, and the Second Confederate Congress from 1864 to 1865.Rives was the author of several books, the most important being his Life and Times of James Madison (3 vols., Boston, 1859–68). He served on the Board of Visitors for the University of Virginia from 1834 to 1849, and was for many years the president of the Virginia Historical Society. He died at \"Castle Hill\" in 1868 and was buried in the family cemetery.His son, Alfred Landon Rives, was a prominent engineer, and his granddaughter Amélie Rives was a novelist, best known for The Quick or the Dead? (1888).His second son William Cabell Rives, Jr., (1825-1890) owned Cobham Park Estate.[2] It was listed the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.