Margaret Junkin Preston: A Biography (review)

l68CIVIL WAR history contentment. Her tenacity went well beyond the ordinary; she was incapable of admitting that hers was anything other than a perfect marriage to a perfect man. The degree to which Libbie's construction of self was tied to her husband's image invites comparison to Jessie Benton Fremont. Both women channeled their ambitions into the creation of myths about their spouses; both married controversial figures with fatal character flaws; and both saw their men through rose-colored glasses. As widows, each attempted to support herself by writing about her adventurous life with a flamboyant husband. While Jessie fought poverty all her life, Libbie turned her widowhood into a profession , producing a quite comfortable living. What was the difference? It was in their abilities to manipulate conventional gender roles and expectations of a lady. Whereas Jessie was a little too aggressive and a little too much "General Jessie," Libbie remained firmly within the bounds of womanly propriety . That she so completely internalized the conventional ideal of womanhood evoked enormous sympathy, and no one dared to question the "Boy General" myth during her lifetime. Leckie gives us a solidly researched and well-written account of Libbie Custer's life. Although she admits that her subject "remained strangely illusive " to her, she provides a classic study of how expected gender roles could dominate an individual's life. There is a pathetic quality to Libbie Custer's story. For her, the only avenue to meaning for her life was through the idealization of her husband and marriage; thus she created her own role as perfect wife and devoted widow. In the end, she had lived the myth for so many years that she could no longer distinguish fact from fiction. Virginia J. Laas Missouri Southern State College Margaret Junkin Preston: A Biography. By Mary Coulling. (Winston-Salem: John F. Blair, 1993. Pp. ix, 264. $21.95.) Mary Coulling, in a sensitive and skillfully crafted work, has rescued from the dustbins of history the story of a remarkable and talented nineteenthcentury woman. Margaret Junkin Preston (1820-97) was tne first of nine children born to Julia Rush Miller and the Reverend George Junkin, a controversial Presbyterian minister and educator. In 1830 the family moved to Easton, Pennsylvania, where Reverend Junkin became founder and president of Lafayette College. It was here in the "Domes of Academe" that Maggie pursued a rigorous course of classical study, and composed over a hundred poems. In 1848, Reverend Junkin moved his family to Lexington, Virginia, where he became president of Washington College. Between 1 850 and 1 855, several dozen of Margaret Junkin's poems appeared in such prominent publications BOOK REVIEWS169 as the Southern Literary Magazine. In 1856, her only novel, Silverwood: A Book of Memories, was published anonymously. At age thirty-eight Maggie married a widower, Maj. John T. L. Preston, a prominent Lexingtonian and professor ofLatin and English literature at Virginia Military Institute. Her literary career was put aside while she took on the responsibilities of being a dutiful wife and mother to Major Preston's seven children. The Civil War years challenged Margaret Junkin Preston's courage, strength, and resourcefulness as she assumed responsibility for Major Preston 's business affairs, the care of her children and step-children, and the protection of their home from the ravages of a week-long occupation by Union forces. Maggie began writing poetry again during the latter years of the war, largely because of her husband's heightened appreciation of her poetic talents . Her most successful book, Beechenbrook, a wartime ballad published in 1865, ultimately went through eight printings and became a "runaway bestseller" (145). This work, followed by the publication of her poems in a new Southern magazine, Land We Love, made Margaret Junkin Preston known throughout the South. In 1870 a collection of her poems, Old Songs and New, was published by Lippincott. But in spite of her success and the praise of contemporary critics, Maggie was self-effacing and tinged with a sense of guilt, insisting that family and domestic responsibilities must take first place in her life. Nevertheless , like many intelligent and talented women of her day, Margaret Junkin Preston found the narrow...