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American success story: the poor immigrant who comes to America, uses his wits, drive and muscle to amass a fortune, and enjoys a self-satisfied life of comfort and prestige. Joe Ring, on the other hand, was the "unsuccess story" rarely told: the immigrant whose attempts to achieve the American dream fall short, one after the other, and lead only to a pathetic end. And Barbara, Barbara was the first-generation American: imbued from infancy with the age-old values and customs of her parents' European homeland, yet coming of age in an America more powerful and materialistic, more self-righteous and susceptible to corruption, than any middle class society the world had ever seen. Three disparate personalities interlocked and swirling together for as long as fate would allow - or God ordain - in the still eye of a national tornado: Reconstruction.
This book presents the harvest of my long season of gathering. It is a true account, a narrative grounded in fastidious research, of "the Rolling Fork tragedy." To tell the story most vividly, rather than simply relate historical facts, I have re-created the settings in which those facts occurred. However, this is not a novel. I never presume to know, and I do not attempt to describe, the thoughts of George or Joe or Barbara, or any of their contemporaries. I introduce no fictional characters, and I depict no action that is not suggested persuasively by documented circumstances. When there are gaps in the historical record, or contradictions, I note them, and evaluate them. Where supposition is introduced, I label it as such and state the grounds for it. Dialogue in quotation marks is taken from original sources; dialogue not in quotation marks is insinuated from factual situations. Every line of narration, every word of description that is documentable has a footnote citing its source. The rest is written to convey the whole truth of what all those queerly-shaped pieces add up to when sewn together.
For family historians, therefore, this book represents a case study of how to build historical context around an ancestral event. Depicting graphically how family history and national history converge, it may also remind academic historians that the story of one family often serves to enlighten the story of a whole nation. At the same time, this work at its core is a demonstration of the essential and valuable role that oral tradition plays in a thorough and accurate understanding of the past. Information gleaned from three different kinds of sources is united here to reconstruct the whole truth of "the Rolling Fork tragedy:" written records, oral lore and material culture.
Twelve possible explanations for the calamity are explored, each as it arises in the course of the narrative. These hypotheses emerged over the years as the event came into focus, and each one is tested here against the known players, to see whose thumb might fit the print.
At 11:30 Tuesday night, March 4, 1873, Barbara Ring is at home with her four boys, sleeping probably. "Joseph Ring . . . resided at that time with his family about two miles from Vicksburg," William Muller, a colleague, will state under oath, "a small farm of sixty acres." The land rolls with lush spring vegetation and deep green woods. The house is almost new - built just last year - and stands on a dirt lane that winds out to Baldwin's Ferry Road. In the cloudless sky glows a waxing crescent moon. (Although drizzle is falling at Rolling Fork Landing, newspapers will report that Vicksburg's weather has been "clear and pleasant throughout the day.")
At 11:30 Tuesday night, March 4, 1873, George Ring is in Vicksburg, presumably at home in bed beside his wife. "I was in Vicksburg when the fire occurred," he will testify in court, and that statement, at least, no one will contest. The bedroom he and Catherine share is on the second story of their large residence at 700 Adams Street.
And Joe Ring . . . At 11:30 p.m. on March 4, 1873 - maybe still breathing, maybe still aware - Joe Ring is forty miles distant at Rolling Fork Landing. "Enough was found to justify the jury summoned in returning a verdict," Justice of the Peace Noah Parker will report, "that the remains found were that of Joseph Ring." The packet Joe intended to board this morning to return to Vicksburg never showed. So he is spending one more night in the Ring & Co. store.
His last.
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