Alfred L. Rives

Alfred Landon Rives (March 25, 1830, Paris, France – February 27, 1903 Castle Hill, Virginia) was an American engineer. He worked on various railroads, bridges, buildings and canals in Northern and Central America. He also served as a Confederate States Army officer during the American Civil War. Life Alfred Rives was the son of William Cabell Rives and Judith (Walker) Rives. His father, who was among the most distinguished citizens of Virginia, was the United States Minister to France; based in Paris where Alfred was born in 1830. The elder Rives would serve as a United States Senator before being posted on the same position again 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 became a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute and graduated two years later in 1848, ranking sixth in a class of twenty-four. Being proficient in engineering, he determined to adopt that as a profession, and in the same year 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, the Ecole des ponts et Chaussees. After graduation in 1854, he was offered a position in the French Northern Railway Company but instead returned to the United States, where he served in the engineering corps of the Virginia Midland Railway.