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

Biography

She was born in

Milton, Pennsylvania Milton is a Borough (Pennsylvania), borough in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States, on the West Branch Susquehanna River, north of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, located in Central Pennsylvania's Susquehanna River Valley. ...

, in 1820.''Southern Life in Southern Literature'', Maurice Garland Fulton (ed.), Kessinger Publishing, 2003, p. 26

/ref> Her father was

George Junkin The Reverend George Junkin (November 1, 1790 – May 20, 1868) was an American educator and Presbyterian minister who served as the first and third president of Lafayette College and later as president of Miami University and Washington College ...

, a

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...

minister and college president.Charles William Hubner, ''Representative Southern Poets'', BiblioLife, 2008, p. 14

/ref> She learned

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

and

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

at the age of twelve. She married Major

John Thomas Lewis Preston John Thomas Lewis Preston (April 25, 1811 – July 15, 1890) was an American educator and military officer from Virginia. He was a primary founder and organizer of the Virginia Military Institute, and was one of its first two faculty members. ...

in 1857, a professor of

Virginia Military Institute The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is a public senior military college in Lexington, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1839 as America's first state military college and is the oldest public senior military college in the U.S. In k ...

. Her sister, Elinor (Ellie), had in 1853 married

Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson (January 21, 1824 – May 10, 1863) was a Confederate general and military officer who served during the American Civil War. He played a prominent role in nearly all military engagements in the eastern the ...

, a colleague of Preston's at VMI. Major Preston served on the staff of Stonewall Jackson during the Civil War. She wrote many volumes of prose and poetry, and published some of her writing in the ''

Southern Literary Messenger The ''Southern Literary Messenger'' was a periodical published in Richmond, Virginia, from August 1834 to June 1864, and from 1939 to 1945. Each issue carried a subtitle of "Devoted to Every Department of Literature and the Fine Arts" or some va ...

'' and ''

Graham's Magazine ''Graham's Magazine'' was a nineteenth-century periodical based in Philadelphia established by George Rex Graham and published from 1840 to 1858. It was alternatively referred to as ''Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine'' (1841–1842, and J ...

''. She also published a few articles in ''

Harper's Magazine ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the United States. ''Harper's Magazine'' has ...

''. 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. She is remembered for espousing the Confederacy in her poems, and she was known informally as the Poet Laureate of the Confederacy. She became blind in the late 1880s, and died in

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

in 1897.

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)

References

External links

* * *
Papers of Preston
at the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the Public university, public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referre ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Preston, Margaret Junkin 1820 births 1897 deaths 19th-century American poets 19th-century American women writers American women poets National symbols of the Confederate States of America Northern-born Confederates People from Lexington, Virginia People from Northumberland County, Pennsylvania Poets from Pennsylvania Poets from Virginia Virginia Military Institute people War poetry Blind poets