- Joined
- Dec 3, 2011
- Location
- Laurinburg NC
Margaret Junkin Preston was the sister of Elinore Junkin Jackson, the first wife of Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson. Elinore met Jackson while he was a professor of natural and experimental philosophy and artillery tactics at the Virginia Military Institute and married him in August of 1853.
The newlyweds set up housekeeping with Elinore's family on the campus of Washington College, where Elinore and Margaret's father, the Rev. Dr. George Junkin, was president. Margaret formed an immediate attachment to her sister's new husband and remained close to him even after Elinore died in childbirth 14 months later. (James Robertson's 1997 biography of Jackson goes so far as to suggest that Margaret and Jackson were actually in love but were prevented from marrying by Victorian social strictures.)
Margaret eventually married a VMI professor, J.L.T. Preston, in 1857, the same year that Jackson entered into his second marriage with Mary Anna Morrison.