On August 24, 1852, Eliza Chinn and James Alexander McHatton were married in Lexington, and for ten years thereafter they lived at Arlington plantation on the Mississippi, a few miles below Baton Rouge, leaving hastily in ’62, upon the appearance of Federal gunboats at their levee.
During the remainder of the war they lived almost continuously in army ambulances, convoying cotton from Louisiana across Texas to Mexico.
In February, 1865, they went to Cuba, and lived there until the death of Mr. McHatton, owning and operating, with mixed negro and coolie labor, a large sugar plantation—“Desengaño.”
After her return to the United States Mrs. McHatton was married to Dwight Ripley, July 9, 1873, and the remainder of her life was passed in the North. In 1887 Mrs. Ripley published “From Flag to Flag”—a narrative of her war-time and Cuban experiences, now out of print.
The reminiscences which make up the present volume have been written at intervals during the last three or four years. The final arrangements for their publication were sanctioned by her the day before she passed away—on July 13, 1912, in the eighty-first year of her age.
E. R. N.
UNLIKE ANY OTHER BOOK.
A Virginia Girl in the Civil War.
Being the Authentic Experiences of a Confederate Major’s Wife who followed her Husband into Camp at the Outbreak of the War. Dined and Supped with General J. E. B. Stuart, ran the Blockade to Baltimore, and was in Richmond when it was Evacuated. Collected and edited by Myrta Lockett Avary. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25 net; postage additional.
“The people described are gentlefolk to the back-bone, and the reader must be a hard-hearted cynic if he does not fall in love with the ingenuous and delightful girl who tells the story.”—New York Sun.