The Life and Letters of Margaret Junkin Preston

Initially published in 1903, this is an account of the life of the Southern poet, Margaret Junkin Preston, by her step-daughter, Elizabeth Preston Allan. The Pennsylvania born Mrs. Preston spent most of her life in Lexington, Virginia. Daughter of the once-president of Washington College, she married Major John T. L. Preston, who helped found the Virginia Military Institute and taught Latin there. Her sister, Eleanor, (who died in childbirth in 1854) was the first wife of Major Thomas Jonathan Jackson, later famous as "Stonewall" Jackson. Woven into the customary biographic fabric is her "Journal of the War Times," describing life in Lexington, Virginia during that emotive period. Each hour brought tidings of the death in battle of the men of that community. With many families having four or five sons in the army, the atmosphere was of constant fear, sorrow, and anxiety. The long-anticipated Federal invasion did not come until the summer of 1864, but then the Virginia Military Institute was burned, while houses were ransacked for food or articles tributary to the continuance of the war. Col. Preston's losses left him, from comparative affluence, a poor man.Amid all this tragedy and with eyes too delicate for much use, and moreover, with the cares of a large household pressing upon her with its traditions of hospitality to an extensive network of relatives and friends, Mrs. Preston snatched some moments for her poetry. After the war tempest, and the difficult Reconstruction aftershock, life at last settled down into serene enjoyment. As an inside view of the antebellum condition of cultivated Southern society, her story is a treasure. Her letters and correspondence cover a plethora of historical events from a primary resource account of the hanging of John Brown to personal tidbits of her close friendship with the family of Robert E. Lee, and many other notable families. Too, the reader gets a glimpse of Europe and its sites via the letters to and from her friends writing of their tours. NOTE: This particular quality reprint has been re-typeset in 12-point Garamond font, which is quite easily read type. Any reviews which suggest otherwise would apply to other reprints of this book.