Margaret Junkin Preston Explained

Margaret Junkin Preston
Birth Date:	19 May 1820
Birth Place:	Milton, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Death Place:	Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Resting Place:	Oak Grove Cemetery, Lexington, Virginia
Spouse:	John Thomas Lewis Preston (1857–1890; his death)
Occupation:	Poet, author
Parents:	George Junkin Julia Rush (Miller) Junkin
Relations:	Elinor Jackson (sister)

Margaret Junkin Preston (May 19, 1820 – March 28, 1897) was an American poet and author.^[1]

Biography

She was born in Milton, Pennsylvania, in 1820.^{[2] [3]} Her father was George Junkin, a Presbyterian minister and college president.^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]} She learned Latin and Ancient Greek at the age of twelve.^[2] She married Major John Thomas Lewis Preston in 1857,^[6] a professor of Latin at Virginia Military Institute.^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]} Her sister, Elinor (Ellie), had in 1853 married Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, a colleague of Preston's at VMI.^[7] Major Preston served on the staff of Stonewall Jackson during the Civil War.^[8]

She wrote many volumes of prose and poetry, and published some of her writing in the Southern Literary Messenger and Graham's Magazine.^[9] She also published a few articles in Harper's Magazine.^[10] Preston's 1856 novel Silverwood is a subtle exploration of the clash between traditional values of honor and family and the new market economy that was sweeping through the United States and the Shenandoah Valley.^[11] She is remembered for espousing the Confederacy in her poems,^[5] and she was known informally as the Poet Laureate of the Confederacy.^[12]

She became blind in the late 1880s, and died in Baltimore in 1897.^{[2] [4]}

Bibliography

• Silverwood, a Book of Memories (1856) at Internet Archive
• Beechenbrook: A Rhyme of War (1865)
• Old Song and New (1870)
• Cartoons (1875)
• Centennial Poem for Washington and Lee University: Lexington, Virginia, 1775–1885 (1885)
• A Handful of Monographs: Continental and English (1886)
• For Love's Sake: Poems of Faith and Comfort (1886)
• Colonial Ballads, Sonnets and Other Verse (1887)
• Semi-Centennial Ode for the Virginia Military Institute: Lexington, Virginia, 1839–1889 (1889)
• Aunt Dorothy: An Old Virginia Plantation Story (1890)

External links

• • • • Beechenbrook e-text
• Papers of Preston at the University of North Carolina

Notes and References

1. Web site: Margaret Junkin Preston Papers, 1812–1892, 1938, 1997. December 14, 2016.
2. Book: Margaret Junkin Preston (1820-1897) . Southern Writers: A Biographical Dictionary . Joseph M. . Flora . Amber . Vogel . . 2006 . 325 .
3. Southern Life in Southern Literature, Maurice Garland Fulton (ed.), Kessinger Publishing, 2003, p. 268 https://books.google.com/books?id=lUzX8R6MnIQC&pg=PA268
4. Charles William Hubner, Representative Southern Poets, BiblioLife, 2008, p. 147 https://books.google.com/books?id=RmSdWGBpQCQC&pg=PA147-IA1
5. Web site: Margaret Junkin Preston, Poet of the Confederacy. December 14, 2016.
6. Web site: Margaret Junkin Preston (1820–1897) – Poetess Laureate of the South. December 14, 2016.
7. Web site: Eleanor Junkin (1825–1854) – first wife of Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. December 14, 2016.
8. Web site: Margaret Junkin Preston Papers, 1812-1892, 1938, 1997.
9. Web site: History Cooperative – A Short History of Nearly Everything! . December 14, 2016 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20080630095233/http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/95.1/br_46.html . June 30, 2008 .
10. Web site: Margaret Junkin Preston – Harper's Magazine. December 14, 2016.
11. http://blurblawg.typepad.com/files/rockbridge-county-probate.pdf Alfred L. Brophy & Douglas Thie, Land, Slaves, and Bonds: Probate in the Pre-Civil War Shenandoah Valley, West Virginia Law Review 116 (2016): 345, 348–50
12. Web site: Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery. Virginia is for Lovers (i.e., Virginia Tourism Corporation). September 17, 2017.