Preston, John Thomas Lewis
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Preston, John Thomas Lewis
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John Thomas Lewis Preston was a founder of VMI, Confederate officer and interim VMI Superintendent during the Civil War, and a principal architect of the Lost Cause at VMI during the postbellum years.
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John Thomas Lewis Preston was a principal figure in the early history of Virginia Military Institute. Preston was born in 1811 in Lexington, Virginia. A lifelong booster of the city, during the 1830s Preston lobbied avidly to bring a state military institution to Lexington before securing VMI’s charter from the Virginia legislature in 1839. Subsequently, Preston served on the original Board of Visitors and as a Professor of Modern Languages from 1839-1875.
Preston was an enslaver and strident defender of the institution slavery, which he described as divinely ordained, “humane, equitable, and beneficent.” He enslaved at least three individuals during his tenure at VMI, including a fifty-year-old woman, a forty-five-year-old woman, and a twenty-six-year-old man whose names are not recorded in the 1860 U.S. Census slave schedule.
Preston was present with Corps of Cadets at the execution of John Brown in 1859, writing a detailed account of the events and praising the execution. At the commencement of the Civil War in 1861, Preston left VMI and joined the 9th Virginia Infantry regiment as a Lieutenant Colonel. He also served as chief of staff for his brother-in-law, the Confederate general Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. Preston’s son William, a Confederate soldier, was mortally wounded at the Battle of Second Manassas in August 1862. Preston returned to VMI in 1862 to serve as acting superintendent, and he oversaw deployments of the Corps of Cadets in support of Jackson’s army after the Battle of McDowell in May 1862. Preston’s son Frank, a VMI cadet, commanded Company B of the Corps of Cadets at the Battle of New Market in May 1864. Preston helped save VMI records and property during Hunter's Raid on VMI in June 1864. He remained with the Corps of Cadets after VMI personnel were relocated to Richmond, serving temporarily as superintendent while the Corps of Cadets was housed in an almshouse until ultimately evacuating Richmond in April 1865.
Immediately following the Civil War, Preston returned to VMI to teach. Along with Francis Smith, Preston played a key role in the rebuilding of VMI in 1866. He also quickly emerged as an influential architect of the Lost Cause at VMI, giving speeches that memorialized the Corps of Cadets’ actions at the Battle of New Market. Preston also authored a Lost Cause-infused history of VMI in 1889, a major influential source in subsequent institutional histories of VMI. VMI’s Preston Library, dedicated in 1939, is named after Preston and a quote by Preston adorns the Parapet.
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April 25, 1811
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July 15, 1890
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Virginia Military Institute
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Virginia Military Institute
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Randolph P. Shaffner. The Father of Virginia Military Institute: A Biography of Colonel J.T.L. Preston, CSA. Jefferson: McFarland, 2014.
Kaylyn L. Sawyer, “‘With Nothing Left But Reputation”: Reconstructing the Virginia Military Institute,” Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era 7 (2017), https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/gcjcwe/vol7/iss1/4
J.T.L. Preston in the 1860 Census: https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/34674466:7667?tid=&pid=&queryId=c23066e57bc8524ac81d4060464f680c&_phsrc=PDX3&_phstart=successSource
Preston’s firsthand account of the execution of John Brown in Francis H. Smith, Virginia Military Institute—Building and Rebuilding (1890), https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Virginia_Military_Institute—Building_and_Rebuilding
John T. L. Preston papers, VMI Archives. https://archivesspace.vmi.edu/repositories/3/resources/322
Letter, John T. L. Preston to Stonewall Jackson. April 1863, VMI Archives. http://digitalcollections.vmi.edu/digital/collection/p15821coll11/id/3829/rec/1
Preston, John Thomas Lewis. “Historical Sketch of the Establishment and Organization of the Virginia Military Institute.” Virginia Military Institute Archives, 1889. http://digitalcollections.vmi.edu/digital/collection/p15821coll11/id/3854/rec/2
Preston, John Thomas Lewis. “Letter, John T. L. Preston to Francis H. Smith, 1889.” Vmi.on.worldcat.org. Virginia Military Institute Archives, July 4, 1889. http://digitalcollections.vmi.edu/digital/collection/p15821coll11/id/3935/rec/4
Preston, John Thomas Lewis. “Colonel Preston Addresses VMI Corps of Cadets.” Eighth Anniversary of New Market Corps Address. Address presented at the Eighth Anniversary of New Market Corps Address, May 15, 1872.
Smith, Francis H., and John Thomas Lewis Preston . “John T. L. Preston Correspondence, 1839.” Vmi.on.worldcat.org. Virginia Military Institute Archives, 1839.
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