Rose O'Neal Greenhow

Rose Greenhow, ca.1863

Rose O'Neal Greenhow (* probably 1815 in Montgomery County , Virginia , † October 1, 1864 off the coast of Wilmington , North Carolina ) was a spy for the southern states in the American Civil War . Her greatest merit was forwarding three strategically important messages to General Beauregard that helped the Southern Army defeat the Northern Army in the First Battle of the Bull Run . When she was arrested for ten months for her activities, she smuggled information and letters out of prison portraying herself as a martyr of the southern states. President Jefferson Davis received her as a southern heroine on her return and had her buried with military honors after her death. She became known under the nicknames Wild Rose and Rebel Rose .

Life

Youth and marriage

Rose O'Neal's date of birth is unknown, as is the identity of her parents. Several O'Neals lived in Montgomery County and it is believed that their parents were Eliza Henrietta and John O'Neal. If so, Rose was the third of five daughters. John O'Neal was killed by a slave in 1817. His wife was forced to sell all of his possessions to pay off his debts and send both Rose and her sister Ellen to live with her aunt Maria Ann Hill in Washington, DC . Her aunt ran a boarding house on Capitol Hill where the sisters went to school and received social norms. Here Rose made first contacts, u. a. with John C. Calhoun , whose views on slavery and southern rights she shared. Through her liveliness and her quick wittedness she made herself popular in the higher circles and was nicknamed Wild Rose , in German Wilde Rose . Rose's position in society was consolidated when her sister Ellen married James Madison Cutts in 1833, a nephew of former first lady Dolley Madison , who became a mentor to the sisters.

In 1835, Rose married Robert Greenhow, who worked in the State Department . The marriage produced their daughters Florence, Gertrude, Leila and Rose. It was through him that she met Daniel Webster and James Buchanan , who later became the 15th President of the United States , among others . Buchanan became a close friend, and his acquaintance opened the way for Rose to the highest circles in Washington. She quickly made a name for herself as a generous host and welcomed politicians, diplomats and foreign dignitaries into her home. In this way she created a network of friends, patrons and allies and the greenhows gained increasing influence. Among other things, Roses diverse contacts helped Greenhow to several terms of office. From her husband, who was researching US land claims in the northwestern Pacific, she learned to read maps and analyze clues, which would later be of use to her. Together, the couple supported John C. Calhoun's goal of expanding the slave states. Rose also lobbyed for him when he worked against the 1850 Compromise . During his last illness in the same year, she did not leave his side and later she wrote about him:

"I am a woman of the South, born with revolutionary blood in my veins and my first, rough ideas about government and state affairs were given firmness and shape thanks to the best and wisest man of this century."

After Calhoun's death, Robert Greenhow left the State Department and tried for a while to gain a foothold in San Francisco . Through James Buchanan, Rose got her husband a position as an assistant in the US Land Commission , but it was not the lucrative position he had hoped for. In addition, a land claim in California that Greenhow had hoped for turned out to be a hoax, causing the Greenhows to lose money invested. In 1854 Greenhow had a fatal accident when he fell into a construction pit on the street. The city of San Francisco awarded Rose $ 10,000 in compensation, but she moved back to Washington, where she occasionally wrote commentaries on Washington society for the New York Herald . She traveled to California one last time in 1856 to support James Buchanan's candidacy for president. She also advised him to build a transcontinental railroad.

espionage

There were rumors early on that the Greenhows were politically intriguing. Rose was suspected of working for the British during the negotiations on the Oregon Compromise . She also always advocated slavery and was enthusiastic about secession. When the American Civil War broke out in April 1861 , Rose became the head of a spy ring in Washington. Because of her numerous contacts, it was easy for her to get information. As before, she cultivated friendships in various political camps and was one of the few sympathizers of the southerners who still invited and entertained northerners. Young officers and government officials did not suspect women as spies and carelessly disclosed details from staff meetings. In this way Rose managed to send Confederate General Beauregard information about the marching routes and marching orders of the Union Army. She smuggled the information in the bun of her messenger Betty Duvall. Both Beauregard and Jefferson Davis credited Rose with the Confederate Army's victory in the First Battle of the Bull Run .

In contrast to conventional spies, however, Rose made no secret of her sympathies for the south, which is why she became increasingly suspicious of the northern states after the battle of Bull Run. So she openly visited Confederate prisoners of war to bring them food and clothing, and sent their names to Richmond . She also told the wife of a State Department officer that she could easily communicate with Beauregard at any time. There were also rumors of love affairs with Senators Joseph Lane and Henry Wilson . The detective Allan Pinkerton , who followed her on behalf of the government, said of her:

“She has used anything and everything as a vehicle to carry out her ungodly purposes. Not in vain did she use her power among the army officers, some of whom she stripped of their patriotic hearts and turned into sympathizers with the enemies of the country […] Nothing was too sacred to her not to use it to accomplish her treasonous ends . "

Rose Greenhow with her daughter "Little Rose" in the Old Capitol Prison, 1862

Despite the observation, Rose continued to send encrypted messages. Among other things, she was able to get copies of reports on Washington's defenses, from which weaknesses in the defense, number of soldiers and the amount and condition of ammunition could be deduced. Furthermore, she and her friends and helpers hatched plans for sabotage in case the Confederate army invaded. It was planned, for example, to cut the telegraph cables between the forts of the northern states and to render the cannons harmless.

On August 23, 1861, she was placed under house arrest by Pinkerton. They only partially succeeded in destroying incriminating material. At that time, only her youngest daughter, Rose, lived with her and shared her mother's arrest. Because her guards rightly suspected that she was still smuggling news out, the daughter was sometimes treated as a prisoner. In addition, Rose's personal belongings were searched, which led to several angry letters to William H. Seward . Copies of two letters she smuggled out were published in the paper by friends in Richmond . Subsequently, she and her eight-year-old daughter, from whom she did not want to separate, were transferred to the Old Capitol Prison in January 1862. Ironically, it was her aunt's former hotel, which had been converted into a prison, and Rose lived in the old room of her great role model, John C. Calhoun.

Rose took advantage of her imprisonment for propaganda purposes and demonstratively behaved as a martyr for the south, both in hearings and in her diary entries. She presented herself as a devoted patriot and victim of “the brutal Yankees who lock up a mother and her child”, which earned her a lot of sympathy in the south. After a hearing in March 1862, which was inconclusive, the government finally decided to banish Rose to the southern states until the end of the war. In June she was finally released and taken across the border. With a Confederate flag around her shoulders, Rose traveled to Richmond, where she was received as a heroine. Jefferson Davis honored her for her services and gave her a $ 2,500 reward. "Without you there would have been no battle at the Bull Run." Nevertheless, some compatriots viewed her with mixed feelings. With her open descriptions of how she was guarded around the clock and her laundry ransacked, she had violated common etiquette and it was considered improper for a woman to strive for fame. In addition, some of her own countrymen distrusted her. Mary Chesnut wrote in her diary:

“Some claim that Mrs. Greenhow put herself in custody and under suspicion to make us trust her more. The men of Manassas swear that she would be our good angel, but the women of Washington saw that she always went to the highest bidder - and they have more money than us! "

Trip abroad and death

In August 1863, Rose broke the blockade of the northern states and traveled to Europe with her daughter to receive support for the southern states. Among other things, it was from Napoleon III. and Queen Victoria received. During her time in England she wrote her memoirs about her imprisonment and published them under the title My Imprisonment and the First Year of Abolition Rule At Washington to German My imprisonment and the first year abolitionist rule in Washington . The book became a bestseller in Great Britain, but despite its popularity it did not succeed in winning the European states as allies.

In August 1864, Rose traveled back to America with news and more than two thousand dollars in gold from her book sales, but left her daughter in a convent school in France. The northern states blocked the southern states as before and shortly before the coast of Wilmington the ship ran aground. As they were being chased by a Northern ship and Rose feared another capture, she insisted on being rowed ashore despite the raging storm. At the mouth of the Cape Fear River the boat capsized and since Rose was wearing her gold on her body, she was pulled under the water and drowned. Her body was washed ashore and transferred to Wilmington, where she was buried with military honors.

literature

• Rose Greenhow: My Imprisonment and the First Year of Abolition Rule At Washington . London: Richard Bentley, 1863.
• Harnett Thomas Kane: Spies for the Blue and Gray . Ace Books 1954.
• Ann Blackman: Wild Rose: Rose O'Neale Greenhow, Civil War Spy . Random House 2005, ISBN 1-4000-6118-0 .
• Ishbel Ross: Rebel Rose: Life of Rose O'Neal Greenhow, Confederate Spy . Mockingbird Books 1992, ISBN 0-89176-026-1 .

Web links

• Rose O'Neal Greenhow Papers . An Online Archival Collection. Special Collections Library, Duke University. Accessed August 9, 2016
• Rose O'Neal Greenhow . CivilWar @ Smithsonian. Accessed August 9, 2016
• Rose O'Neal Greenhow . Encyclopædia Britannica. Accessed August 9, 2016

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Phyllis F. Field: Greenhow, Rose O'Neal . In: American National Biography Online . Oxford University Press 2000, Online Edition . Accessed July 29, 2016.
2. ↑ Ann Blackman: Wild Rose: Rose O'Neale Greenhow, Civil War Spy . Random House 2006, p. 68.
3. ↑ Ann Blackman: Wild Rose: Rose O'Neale Greenhow, Civil War Spy . Random House 2006, p. 12.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Michael Farquhar: 'Rebel Rose', A Spy of Grande Dame Proportions . Washington Post, September 18, 2000. Accessed August 4, 2016.
5. ↑ Ann Blackman: Wild Rose: Rose O'Neale Greenhow, Civil War Spy . Random House 2006, p. 13.
6. ^ ^{A b} Harnett Thomas Kane: Spies for the Blue and Gray . Ace Books 1954, p. 26.
7. ↑ Ann Blackman: Wild Rose: Rose O'Neale Greenhow, Civil War Spy . Random House 2006, p. 241.
8. ↑ Harnett Thomas Kane: Spies for the Blue and Gray . Ace Books 1954, p. 41.