Maria Rosetta (O'Neale) Greenhow (abt. 1813 - 1864)

Born about 1813 in Montgomery, Maryland

Ancestors

Wife of Robert Greenhow — married 26 May 1835 (to 27 Mar 1854) in Montgomery County, Maryland

Descendants

Died 30 Sep 1864 at about age 51 in near Wilmington, North Carolina

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Biography

Maria Rosetta O'Neale was born in 1813 on a small plantation in Montgomery, Maryland, the third of five daughters of John O'Neale, a planter and slaveholder, and his wife Eliza Henrietta Hamilton. She went by the name Rose and the last "e" in her surname was dropped by the family during her childhood.

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Rosie was a renowned Confederate spy during the American Civil War. A socialite in Washington, D.C. during the period before the war, she moved in important political circles and cultivated friendships with presidents, generals, senators, and high-ranking military officers including John C. Calhoun and James Buchanan.[2] She used her connections to pass along key military information to the Confederacy at the start of the war. In early 1861, she was given control of a pro-Southern spy network in Washington, D.C. by her handler, Thomas Jordan, then a captain in the Confederate Army. She was credited by Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president, with ensuring the South's victory at the First Battle of Bull Run in late July 1861.

The government found that information was being leaked and the trail lead to Rose Greenhow's residence, Greenhow was subject to house arrest; found to have continued her activities, in 1862 after an espionage hearing, she, with her daughter "Little Rose", was imprisoned for nearly five months in Washington, D.C. Deported to the Confederate States, she traveled to Richmond, Virginia and began new tasks. Running the blockade, she sailed to Europe to represent the Confederacy in a diplomatic mission to France and Britain from 1863 to 1864. In 1863, she also wrote and published her memoir in London, which was popular in Britain. After her returning ship ran aground in 1864 off the coast of Wilmington, North Carolina, she drowned when her rowboat overturned as she tried to escape a Union gunboat. She was honored with a Confederate military funeral.

During 1993, the women's auxiliary of the Sons of Confederate Veterans changed its name to the Order of the Confederate Rose in Greenhow's honor, following publicity about her exploits in a TV movie the previous year.

Source: Wikipedia Biography on Rose O'Neal Greenhow Wikipedia: Rose O'Neal Greenhow

Sources

• Wikipedia Biography on Rose O'Neal Greenhow Wikipedia: Rose O'Neal Greenhow

• Wild Rose: The True Story of a Civil War Spy, by Ann Blackman, New York: Random House Digital, 2006, p. 58 [1]

• Letter Written in Cipher on Mourning Paper by Rose Greenhow

• "New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1891," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:27RF-RK9 : 12 March 2018), R O N Greenhow, 1856; citing NARA microfilm publication M237 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm .