OCTOBER 1, 1864:
The death of Rose O’Neill Greenhow. Greenhow (born c. 1820) was
one of the Confederacy’s earliest and most effective spies. Living in her
townhouse on fashionable Lafayette Square, Washington D.C. in the early days of
the war, Greenhow was neighbors with many of the Lincoln Administration’s
leading lights to whom she regularly opened her salon. Much sensitive business
was discussed at these soirees, all within the sharp-eared Rose’s hearing.
Unbeknownst to most, she was also having affairs with several Union officers, a
Senator, a couple of Congressmen, and a few minor Administration officials from
whom she was cadging battle plans and written orders in the midst of their
pillow talk. After the war, it was disclosed that Greenhow was chiefly
responsible for passing on the information that allowed the ill-prepared and
outnumbered Confederacy to win the First Battle of Bull Run.
Her extensive spy network was discovered in 1862, and she
was placed under house arrest, along with several female friends. The house on
Lafayette Square became known as “Fort Greenhow.” Unbelievably enough, the
popular “At Homes” continued, and Greenhow kept entertaining her paramours.
Victorian ethics being what they were, her dalliances were not bruited about.
When Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War discovered that Greenhow still had
a busy social calendar, he tossed her into prison (where she continued to be
visited by her male companions). Finally, she was exiled South by the
exasperated Stanton, who had to argue with a plethora of highly-placed
individuals before he could send her South. She was officially received in
Richmond, where Jefferson Davis breveted her a Captain and gave her a large
stipend.
Rose was sent on to Europe, where she acted as a Confederate
consul for most of 1863 and 1864. She
was called “Wild Rose.” Her memoir My
Imprisonment: The First Year of Abolition Rule in Washington became a
European best-seller. She was feted by Queen Victoria and Napoleon III.
Upon her return to the Confederacy, Greenhow was caught in
the blockade. Her ship, the CONDOR, chased by a Union gunboat, ran aground off
Wilmington, and the lifeboat she took to capsized in the rough surf. She
drowned, and when her body was recovered she was buried with full military
honors in Wilmington. In her honor, the Women’s Auxiliary of The
Sons of Confederate Veterans changed its name to The Order of The Confederate
Rose in 1993.
