A few days later Rachel recovered and began writing more profusely in her diary. On June 15, 1861, she mentioned another plea for help from Vidalia. Once more Rachel dispatched Celeste with food and medicines.
Rachel’s diary entries became sparse again. She noted the blockade and the resulting shortages, not to mention the difficulty of the planters in getting their cotton and other products to market. Cotton was king, but only if the planters could sell it for a good price.
Throughout the fall of 1861, there were rumors in Athena that the Union Army was approaching, and Rachel worried over the news. From what I remembered reading, there were no real battles fought in Mississippi between the armies until a year later, so their fears would not be realized for a while.
Rachel frequently expressed anxiety over her husband, a major in one of the Mississippi cavalry regiments. He was a graduate of West Point, I was surprised to learn. She seized upon every letter from him, she wrote, “and read with feverish anxiety until I was assured he was well and had not been in any way injured.”
The next entry after that surprised me enough that I exclaimed, “Good grief,” and startled Diesel. He warbled, and I reached over to pat his head while I read once again the words that shocked me.
Celeste, the wretched girl, has been behaving oddly these past weeks. Finally she has come to me with a confession that I can scarcely believe. It seems that those times when I sent her to aid Vidalia Singletary and her children, Celeste behaved shockingly. She claims that she was seduced, but Franklin Singletary has never impressed me as a particularly forceful nor articulate boy. I suspect that Celeste is wholly to blame for her current condition for I have known her to be of a flirtatious nature before now.
TWENTY-FIVE
Though Rachel Long did not use the word pregnant, I knew that was what she meant by Celeste’s condition. Franklin Singletary was the father of a slave’s child.
I wondered whether that bit of family history had been passed down to the present generation.
In the next few entries Rachel made no mention of Celeste or the Singletarys. Then came the sad news, on November 16, 1861.
Franklin Singletary came today to tell us that the three younger children died in the night. They remained feeble, their sickness unabated, since the summer. The weather of the past weeks was harmful to them, I am certain. Cold, wet, damp, it could not have helped their poor frail lungs. I take some comfort knowing that at least they had warm garments from the cloth I provided. Franklin reports that Vidalia is so weak she cannot move from her bed and his father is prostrate with grief at the loss of his children.
Franklin most humbly begged for assistance to dig the graves, for his father has no workers to aid him. Jasper Singletary was most vehement against the use of slave labor, an attitude that of course did not aid his cause among his fellow citizens. Father Long kindly offered him the use of two of the young, strong field hands, and they went with Franklin to perform the sad duty.
Even at the distance of one hundred and fifty years, I felt the grief of such a tragic loss. Poor Jasper Singletary. No wonder the man was out of his mind—or that his wife died of a broken heart. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than outliving one’s child, let alone three children.
I had to take a break from the diary. My head needed clearing after reading such a heartrending story. Diesel, bless him, sensed my distress. He chirped and leaned from the windowsill to butt his head against my shoulder. He continued to chirp and purr while I stroked him. I felt better after a couple of minutes of special Diesel therapy.
I still didn’t feel like going back to the diary. There was only so much pathos I could take in a day. As Diesel settled back on the windowsill to clean his front paws, I debated what to do. There were always books waiting to be cataloged, but there was another task I suddenly remembered needed doing.
“I’m going next door, boy,” I told the cat. “You stay here and nap.” Diesel answered me with a sleepy meow and a yawn.
With all the other things on my mind, I had forgotten about searching through the Long collection to find the copy of Angeline McCarthy Long’s memoir of Rachel Long that Miss Eulalie said she donated.
In the storage room next to my office I unlocked the door and switched on the lights. I left the door slightly ajar in case Diesel came to look for me. I remembered where the Long collection was shelved and headed to the far end of the room from the door.
I surveyed the shelves and made a mental calculation of the collection—probably around twenty linear feet, I reckoned. That was a good-sized collection. Much of it consisted of correspondence, but there were also copies of wills and deeds, along with maps of the Long family’s extensive property both around Athena and in the Mississippi Delta. I located the finding aid to the collection put together by Miss Eulalie on one of the shelves and started skimming through it.
The contents of each box was listed under the various categories. I found no mention of books in any of the boxes, but the list for the final box in the collection noted it simply as Miscellany. Accordingly I moved to the shelf that housed the box and pulled it down, noting that it was lightweight.
After slipping on a pair of cotton gloves, I opened the box on the worktable and delved through the contents. There were three books inside, but none was the memoir I sought. They appeared to be old schoolbooks from the early twentieth century. Interesting, but not pertinent to my present search. I also found three briar pipes, each in a box with a label denoting the owner, Adalbert Long. I wasn’t sure where he fit into the family tree, but I remembered that the name Adalbert cropped up frequently among the Longs. The final object was a file folder that contained several pieces of sheet music. I checked their copyright dates, and they were of 1890s vintage. Again, interesting but not pertinent.
I replaced the box on the shelf and considered whether I should go through all the boxes in the collection to search for Miss Eulalie’s copy of the memoir. I couldn’t believe the former archivist would have put the book in another box and not have noted it in the finding aid. Still, I decided, I had better check.
Fifteen minutes later, having gone through all the boxes, I came up empty-handed. Either Miss Eulalie had knowingly lied to me or someone had removed her copy of the memoir from the collection. I didn’t like to think of Miss Eulalie as a liar, but she was probably protecting someone. The question was whom.
I peeled off the gloves and discarded them before I locked the storeroom and went back to the office. I found Diesel still asleep on the windowsill. He raised his head groggily and yawned when I resumed my seat at the computer. I patted his head a couple of times, and he settled down to sleep again.
I called up the website of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. I wanted to search their online catalog for a copy of the memoir. No luck, however. Then I searched an online database that claimed to be the world’s largest online catalog. Again, nothing.
The memoir of Rachel Long was indeed a rare item. I would have to ask the mayor whether the family had a copy. I knew there was a large library at Bellefontaine, the antebellum mansion that had been home to the Longs since the 1830s. If they didn’t have a copy, I would have to hope one of the two missing copies turned up. Otherwise I would never know what clues it might contain to the bizarre events of the past few days.