Rose oneal greenhow as a baby son

A socialite in Washington, D. Calhoun and James Buchanan. She used her connections to pass along key military information to the Confederacy at the start of the war. In early , she was given control of a pro-Southern spy network in Washington, D. The government found that information was being leaked and the trail led to Rose Greenhow's residence.

Greenhow was subject to house arrest; found to have continued her activities, in after an espionage hearing, she, with her daughter "Little Rose", was imprisoned for nearly five months in Washington, D. Deported to the Confederacy, she traveled to Richmond, Virginia , and began new tasks. Running the blockade, she sailed to Europe to represent the Confederacy on a diplomatic mission to France and Britain from to In , she also wrote and published her memoir in London, which was popular in Britain.

After her returning ship ran aground in off the coast of Wilmington, North Carolina , she drowned when her rowboat overturned as she tried to escape a Union gunboat.

The rose and the jackal

She was honored with a Confederate military funeral. In , 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. Note: The biographical note on Greenhow at the National Archives and Record Administration, which holds a collection of her papers, says that O'Neal was born in in Port Tobacco, Maryland , but it is unclear what the documentation is for this.

She was the third of five daughters of John O'Neale, a planter and slaveholder, and his wife Eliza Henrietta Hamilton, who were Catholic. Called Rose as a child, O'Neal was the third born and close to her next older sister, Ellen Mary Eleanor and the final "e" was dropped off the family name in Rose's early childhood. Their father died in , murdered by his black valet.

His widow, Eliza O'Neal, had four daughters to support and a cash-poor farm.