Jackson’s Staff Officers.

Of those who served on the staff of General Jackson in the several staff departments and at various times, four fell in battle: Capt. James Keith Boswell, engineer officer, Fauquier County, fell at Chancellorsville; Col. Edward Willis, 12th Georgia Infantry, Savannah, Ga., fell at Cold Harbor; Lieut. Col. A. S. Pendleton, A. A. G., Lexington, Va., fell at Fisher’s Hill; Col. Stapleton Crutchfield, chief of artillery of the Virginia Military Institute, fell on retreat from Petersburg.

At the beginning of the war, when Jackson went to Harper’s Ferry, there came to his aid from the V. M. I. Col. J. T. L. Preston, Prof. James Massie, Col. Alfred Jackson, Col. Stapleton Crutchfield.

To these were added Maj. John Harman, chief quartermaster; Maj. W. Hawkes, chief commissary; Dr. Hunter McGuire, medical director; Capt. George Junkin, A. D. C.; Maj. Jed. Hotchkiss, topographical engineer.

And the following came from time to time: Major Bier, ordnance; Capt. J. M. Garnett, ordnance; Col. William Allan; Colonel Snead, assistant inspector general; Maj. H. K. Douglas, inspector general; Capt. W. Wilbourne, chief of signal officers; Maj. D. B. Bridgforth, provost marshal; Maj. R. L. Dabney, A. A. S.; Lieut. Col. C. J. Falkner, A. A. S.; Capt. J. P. Smith, A. D. C., now the sole surviving member of the staff.

SOURCE: Confederate Veteran, Volume 28, No. 2, February 1920, p. 48

Lieutenant-Colonel John T. L. Preston to Margaret Junkin Preston, December 5, 1861

Headquarters, Valley District,

Winchester, Dec. 5th, 1861.

(This is the regular heading to all documents that we send out.)

Two letter in one day! This is getting worse instead of better. I do not think that while I was a crane, musing, crabbing, and spreading the pinions of fancy, I ever perpetrated more than one epistle in 24 hours.  . . . But now that Jim Lewis is going home on furlough, I cannot refrain from scribbling again. White people here have no chance of getting a furlough; it is only our colored friends who can escape for a time the evils of war. I had but time to gobble up your letter this morning before I wrote, but to-night I have enjoyed it as an epicure ought to eat and be thankful for a dainty. Speaking of dainties, we had for supper to-night two pheasants and some partridges; that will do pretty well, I should say! In fact we live very well. Our mess is: the General and myself; Alfred Jackson, Sandy Pendleton, and George Junkin; very smart fellows all of them (Sandy most uncommonly so), and as nice as can be, and full of gayety. We have a merry table; I as much a boy as any of them, and Jackson grave as a signpost, till something chances to overcome him, and then he breaks out into a laugh so awkward that it is manifest he has never laughed enough to learn how. He is a most simple-hearted man. He said to me the other day, “Do you know that the thing which has most interested and pleased me to-day, is to learn by a letter from Mr. Samuel Campbell that my lot is well set in grass.” This would make Clark laugh, that any one should think so much of such a rocky bit of land! Don't repeat this; it would seem as if I were laughing at the General. Jackson said to me last night, that he would much rather be at the Institute than in the army, and seemed to think fortunate those of us who are to go back. I sleep in the same room with the young men. Jackson invited me to share his room,  . . . but I know that privacy would be more agreeable to him. Besides, I have a notion that he goes to his room many times a day for special prayer. As to myself, you know anything will do for me and  . . . any place to sleep will answer very well. I sleep on what they call a stretcher, a military cot, with my overcoat and cape under my head for a pillow. I sleep soundly and get up early. . . . Well, I have written you an objective letter, and I enclose you a sort of diary that I keep on my business table, to help my indifferent memory. I do so many and such various things that I jot them down to prevent my forgetting. This is the diary of one day, and gives you a sample of my occupations; you must allow that it would take up a good deal of time to fill up these outlines! Hardly room left to say — I love you!

Your Husband.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Preston Allan, The Life and Letters of Margaret Junkin Preston, p. 122-3