Rose O'Neal Greenhow

Born:  1813 or 1814, Montgomery County, Maryland

Died:  October 1, 1864, Cape Fear River, North Carolina

Resting Place:  Oakdale Cemetery, Wilmington, North Carolina

Brief History:  Born to slaveholding parents in Maryland, Rose Greenhow was a Washington, D.C., socialite and a passionate sympathizer for the Confederate cause who became one of the most infamous Southern spies. A wealthy, well-connected widow, Rose watched as tensions between North and South inched ever closer to 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. She used her connections to pass along key military information to the Confederacy at the start of the war. Rose began to use her privileged access to political information to serve the South, thereby becoming the first Confederate secret agent in Washington.

Rose prided herself on being a southern woman and when the Civil War broke out, she aligned herself with the Confederacy. In Spring 1861, she became a Confederate Spy. While first wary, the Confederate commanders eventually allowed her an audience. Rose 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. In 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.