Rose O'Neal Greenhow (Confederate Spy)
Maria Rosatta O'Neal, was born sometime in 1817, the exact date is unknown, in Port Tobacco, Maryland, to a slave owning family. She was the youngest of four daughters and never knew her father, John O'Neal, who was murdered in the year of her birth by one of his own slaves. Her mother, Eliza, who now had a farm to run and four young daughters to raise, decided to send Rose to live with her aunt in Washington. There she prospered and very soon became a wellconsidered young woman. She was educated, passionate and loyal. Olive skinned with long dark hair and rosy cheeked, she was something of a beauty. She was soon mixing in the best circles and became a close friend of the pro-slavery Southern Senator John C Calhoun. He was impressed with this passionate young woman and provided her with the history that would confirm her in her pro-Southern sympathies. In 1835, she met Robert Greenhow, a high society doctor, and after a short courtship they wed. Greenhow was not only a doctor to some of the most prominent people in Washington; he also worked for the State Department. This provided Rose with access to State papers and in time, the secrets of the bedchamber. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War in April, 1861, Rose volunteered her services to the Confederacy as a spy. In the summer of the same year as the forces of both protagonists converged outside Washington for the first major clash of the conflict, Rose busied herself gathering information. On the 9th and 16th of July she smuggled out letters to both General Joseph E Johnstone and General P G T Beauregard. In a short ten word note she told Beauregard to mass his forces at Manassas Junction. The Confederates won the ensuing Battle of First Manassas (or Bull Run, as it is known in the North). The Northern Army was broken and fled in panic, and the road to Washington was wide open. But the Confederates were exhausted and decided not to pursue their beaten foe. It was the closest the South was to get to win the war. The North had expected a swift and easy victory. The Confederate President Jefferson Davis credited Rose O'Neal Greenhow with changing the course of the war, a war which was to last another four bloody years and cost 630,000 lives. Rose, who never bothered to disguise her pro-Southern sympathies, was soon suspected of being a spy. She was finally arrested on 21 August 1861 by Alan Pinkerton (of Pinkerton Detective Agency fame) A search of her home uncovered numerous official State documents, military maps, and the details of Washington’s fortifications. Rose was placed under house arrest but despite being transferred to the Old Capital Prison her spying activities did not cease. Messages were passed between herself and her accomplices tied up in women's hair, hidden
under their hats, and even sewn into their dresses. Exasperated the Federal Authorities deported her to Richmond, Virginia, on 31 May 1862. She was lucky, later in the war she would have been hanged. Rose was greeted in Richmond like a returning hero. With her virtues of courage, devotion and loyalty, she personified Southern womanhood. President Davis made a great fuss of her. He made her a courier and sent her on a diplomatic mission to Europe where she was invited to meet both the Emperor Napoleon III and Queen Victoria. Despite the attention she received however, she was unable to garner any positive commitments of support for the Confederacy. Rose desperately wanted to be involved in the good cause. Frustrated, she decided to return to America. In September 1864, carrying dispatches, she boarded the blockade runner, Condor. An uneventful voyage changed when nearing the coast of North Carolina, just off Cape Fear, the Condor was spotted by the gunboat USS Niphon. In a desperate attempt to escape her pursuers the Condor ran aground. Fearing capture, imprisonment, or worse, Rose abandoned the Condor in a rowboat. In heavy seas and unable to steer, Rose lost control and the boat capsized. Rose a poor swimmer and weighed down by $2000 of gold intended for the Confederate treasury secreted about her person and sewn into her dress, drowned. Her body washed up a few days later. Taken to Wilmington, North Carolina, she was given a State funeral, her coffin being draped in the Confederate flag. On her gravestone is the simple inscription: "Mrs Rose O' Neal Greenhow, a bearer of dispatches for the Confederate Government".