Eliza McHatton Ripley explained

Eliza McHatton Ripley (1832-1912), born Elizabeth Chinn, was an American writer who wrote about her experiences on a Louisiana plantation at the onset of the American Civil War when her family fled to New Orleans, Texas, Mexico, and Cuba^{[1] [2]} She also wrote the book Social Life in Old New Orleans.^[3]

She married her first husband and became Elizabeth McHatton^[4] before being widowed in 1865 and remarrying to Colonel Dwight Ripley in 1873.^[5]

Some of the correspondence of her family still exists^{[6] [7]} including the description of a rebellion of Chinese laborers on her family's plantation in protest at the inadequacy of their rations.^[8]

Notes and References

1. From flag to flag : a woman's adventures and experiences in the South during the war, in Mexico, and in Cuba.
2. Web site: Ripley, Eliza Moore Chinn McHatton. "From Flag to Flag; A Woman's Adventures and Experiences in the South during the War, in Mexico, and in Cuba" .
3. Book: Social Life in Old New Orleans: Being Recollections of My Girlhood . 9781409981916 . May 2009 . Dodo Press .
4. Book: American Mediterranean: Southern Slaveholders in the Age of Emancipation . 9780674072282 . Guterl . Matthew Pratt . 11 March 2013 . Harvard University Press .
5. Book: Along the River Road: Past and Present on Louisiana's Historic Byway . 9780807150634 . Sternberg . Mary Ann . 15 April 2013 . LSU Press .
6. Book: Racial Reconstruction: Black Inclusion, Chinese Exclusion, and the Fictions of Citizenship . 9781479856572 . Wong . Edlie L. . 23 October 2015 . NYU Press .
7. Book: Southern Communities: Identity, Conflict, and Memory in the American South . 9780820355115 . Nash . Steven E. . Stewart . Bruce E. . 2019 . University of Georgia Press .
8. Book: Chinese Cubans: A Transnational History . 9781469607146 . López . Kathleen M. . 10 June 2013 . UNC Press Books .