Mrs. Greenhow 
 
 By W. G. Beymer 
 
 - ...... ■ 
 
 % 
 
Clje Hiorarp 
 
 Of 11)E 
 
 GInitiersitp of Jftortl) Carolina 
 
 Collection of j|5ort& Catoliniana 
 
 •SntiotocB bg 
 
 Jojjn feprunt ^ill 
 
 of thr eiaes of 1889 
 
 ^£57 
 

 Q>9'?o.7S k 
 
 ffl$?:i ^/u±*±&*~ 
 
 C-Oz^/ckuK/ 
 
 
 JjfiOinuS ix ~%* iscC 
 
 4 
 
 f tfwuuJ 
 
 4 &**■ * 
 
tEJje library 
 
 of tf)C 
 
 ^nibersiitp of i^ortfj Carolina 
 
 Crtbotoeb bp Kbe 2!talectic 
 
 anb 
 
 Pjtlnnffjropic Societies! 
 £51 
 
 
-*u. ■ 
 
 yU/. I2~ 
 
 Mrs. Greenhow 
 
 
 
 BY WILLIAM GILMORE BEYMER 
 
 THESE pages record the story of 
 the woman who cast a pebble into 
 the sea of circumstance — a pebble 
 from whose widening ripples there rose 
 a mighty wave, on whose crest the Con- 
 federate States of America were borne 
 through four years of civil war. 
 
 Rose O'Neal Greenhow gave to General 
 Beauregard information which enabled 
 him to concentrate the widely scattered 
 Confederate forces in time to meet 
 McDowell on the field of Manassas, and 
 there, with General Johnson, to win for 
 the South the all - important battle of 
 Bull Run. 
 
 Mrs. Greenhow's cipher despatch — nine 
 words on a scrap of paper — set in motion 
 the reinforcements which arrived at the 
 height of the battle and turned it against 
 the North. But for the part she played 
 in the Confederate victory Rose O'Neal 
 Greenhow paid a heavy price. 
 
 During the Buchanan administration 
 Mrs. Greenhow was one of the leaders 
 of Washington society. She was a South- 
 erner by birth, but a resident of Wash- 
 ington from her girlhood; a widow, 
 beautiful, accomplished, wealthy, and 
 noted for her wit and her forceful per- 
 sonality. Her home was the rendezvous 
 of those prominent in official life in 
 Washington — the " court circle," had 
 America been a monarchy. She was per- 
 sonally acquainted with all the leading 
 men of the country, many of whom had 
 partaken of her hospitality. President 
 Buchanan was a close personal friend; 
 a friend, too, was William H. Seward, 
 then Senator from New York; her niece, 
 a granddaughter of Dolly Madison, was 
 the wife of Stephen A. Douglas. It was 
 in such company that she watched with 
 burning interest the war clouds grow 
 
 * To Mrs. Richard Price, Recording 
 Secretary of Cape Fear Chapter Three, 
 United Daughters of the Confederacy, at 
 Wilmington, North Carolina, acknowledg- 
 ment is made for her courtesy in permitting 
 the use of data relating to Mrs. Greenhow. 
 
 and darken over Charleston Harbor, then 
 burst into the four years' storm; she 
 never saw it end. 
 
 Among her guests at this time was 
 Colonel Thomas Jordan, who, before 
 leaving Washington to accept the ap- 
 pointment of Adjutant-General of the 
 Confederate army at Manassas, broached 
 to Mrs. Greenhow the subject of a secret 
 military correspondence. What would 
 she do to aid the Confederacy ? he asked 
 her. Ah, what would she not do ! Then 
 he told her how some one in Washington 
 was needed by the South; of the im- 
 portance of the work which might be 
 done, and her own especial fitness for 
 the task. And that night before he left 
 the house he gave her a cipher code, and 
 arranged that her despatches to him 
 were to be addressed to " Thomas John 
 Rayford." 
 
 And so he crossed the river into Vir- 
 ginia and left her, in the Federal capital, 
 armed with the glittering shield, " Justi- 
 fied by military necessity," and the two- 
 edged sword, " All's fair in love and war " ; 
 — left her, his agent, to gather in her 
 own way information from the enemy, 
 her former friends, where and from whom 
 she would. 
 
 It was in April, '61, that she took up 
 her work; in November, Allan Pinkerton, 
 head of the Federal Secret Service, made 
 to the War Department a report in which 
 he said — in the vehement language of a 
 partisanship -as intense as Mrs. Green- 
 how's own : 
 
 It was a fact too notorious to need recit- 
 ing here, that for months . . . Mrs. Green- 
 how was actively and to a great extent 
 openly engaged in giving aid and comfort, 
 sympathy and information ; . . . her house 
 was the rendezvous, for the most violent 
 enemies of the government,, * ■: . where they 
 were furnished with every possible informa- 
 tion to be obtained by the untiring energies 
 of this very remarkable woman ; . . . that 
 since the commencement of this rebellion 
 this woman, from her long residence at the 
 
 «1 
 
 <*=, 
 
504 
 
 HARPER'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE 
 
 capital, her superior education, her uncom- 
 mon social powers, her very extensive ac- 
 quaintance among, and her active associa- 
 tion with, the leading politicians of this 
 nation, has possessed an almost superhuman 
 power, all of which she has most wickedly 
 used to destroy the government. . . . She 
 has made use of whoever and whatever she 
 could as mediums to carry into effect her 
 unholy purposes. . . . She has not used her 
 powers in vain among the officers of the 
 army, not a few of whom she has robhed of 
 patriotic hearts and transformed them into 
 sympathizers with the enemies of the 
 country. . . . She had her secret and in- 
 sidious agents in all parts of this city and 
 scattered over a large extent of country. 
 . . . She had alphabets, numbers, ciphers, 
 and various other not mentioned ways of 
 holding intercourse. . . . Statistical facts 
 were thus obtained and forwarded that could 
 have been found nowhere but in the national 
 archives, thus leading me to the conclusion 
 that such evidence must have been obtained 
 from employees and agents in the various 
 departments of the government. 
 
 Thus she worked throughout the open- 
 ing days of the war. Washington lay 
 ringed about with camps of new-formed 
 regiments, drilling feverishly. Already 
 the press and public had raised the cry, 
 " On to Richmond." When would they 
 start ? Where would they first strike ? 
 It was on those two points that the Con- 
 federate plan of campaign hinged. It 
 was Mrs. Greenhow who gave the in- 
 formation. To General Beauregard at 
 Manassas, where he anxiously awaited 
 tidings of the Federal advance, there 
 came about the 10th of July the first 
 message from Mrs. Greenhow. The mes- 
 sage told of the intended advance of the 
 enemy across the Potomac and on to 
 Manassas via Fairfax Court-house and 
 Centreville. It was brought into the 
 Confederate lines by a young lady of 
 Washington, Miss Duval, who, disguised 
 as a market-girl, carried the message to 
 a house near Fairfax Court-house, oc- 
 cupied by the wife and daughters (South- 
 ern born) of an officer in the Federal 
 army. General Beauregard at once com- 
 menced his preparations for receiving the 
 attack, and sent one of his aides to 
 President Davis to communicate the in- 
 formation and to urge the immediate 
 concentration of the scattered Con- 
 federate forces. 
 
 But still the Federal start was delayed, 
 
 and the precise date was as indefinite 
 as ever. It was during this period of 
 uncertainty that (1. Donellan, who. be- 
 fore joining the Confederates, had been 
 a clerk in the Department of the Interior, 
 volunteered to return to Washington for 
 information. lie was armed with the 
 two words " Trust Bearer " in Colonel 
 Jordan's cipher, and was sent across the 
 Potomac with instructions to report to 
 Mrs. Greenhow. He arrived at the very 
 moment that she most needed a mes- 
 senger. Hastily writing in cipher her 
 all-important despatch, " Order issued for 
 .McDowell to move, on Manassas to-night," 
 she gave it to Donellan, who was taken 
 by her agents in a buggy, with relays of 
 horses, down the eastern shore of the 
 Potomac to a ferry near Dumfries, 
 where he was ferried across. Cavalry 
 couriers delivered the despatch into 
 General Beauregard's hands that night, 
 July 16th. 
 
 And the source of Mrs. Greenhow's 
 information ? She has made the state- 
 ment that she "received a copy of the 
 order to McDowell." Allan Pinkerton 
 was not wrong when he said that sho 
 "had not used her powers in vain among 
 the officers of the army." 
 
 At midday of the 17th there came 
 Colonel Jordan's reply: 
 
 Yours was received at eight o'clock at 
 night. Let them come; we are ready for 
 them. We rely upon you for precise infor- 
 mation. Be particular as to description and 
 destination of forces, quantity of artillery, 
 etc. 
 
 She. was ready with fresh information, 
 and the messenger was sent back with 
 the news that the Federals intended to 
 cut the Manassas Gap Railroad to pre- 
 vent Johnson, at Winchester, from re- 
 inforcing Beauregard. After that there 
 was nothing to be done but await the 
 result of the inevitable battle. She had 
 done her best. What that best was worth 
 she learned when she received from Colo- 
 nel Jordan the treasured message: 
 
 Our President and our Genera] direct me 
 to thank you. We rely upon you for further 
 information. The Confederacy owes you a 
 debt. 
 
 When the details of the battle became 
 known, and she learned bow the last of 
 Johnson's S.fiOO men (marched to Gen- 
 
MRS. GREENHOW 
 
 565 
 
 , — 
 
 eral Beauregard's aid because of her 
 despatches) had arrived at three o'clock 
 on the day of the battle and had turned 
 the wavering Eedcral army into a mob of 
 panic-stricken fugitives, she felt that the 
 " Confederacy owed her a debt," indeed. 
 
 In the days immediately following 
 Bull Run it seemed to the Confederate 
 sympathizers in 
 the city that their 
 victorious army 
 had only to jnareh 
 into Washington 
 to take it. "Ev- 
 erything about the 
 national Capitol 
 betokened the pan- 
 ic of the Admin- 
 istration," Mrs. 
 Greenhow wrote. 
 "P reparations 
 were made for 
 the expected at- 
 tack, and signals 
 were arranged to 
 give the alarm. 
 ... I went round 
 with the principal 
 officer in charge 
 of this duty, and ; 
 took advantage of 
 the situation. . . . 
 Our gallant 
 Beauregard would 
 have found him- 
 self right ably 
 seconded by the 
 
 rebels in "Washington had he deemed it 
 expedient to advance on the city. A 
 part of the plan was to have cut the 
 telegraph wires connecting with the va- 
 rious military positions with the War 
 Department, to make prisoners of Mc- 
 Clellan and several others, thereby 
 creating still greater confusion in the 
 first moments of panic. Measures had 
 also been taken to spike the guns in 
 Fort Corcoran, Fort Ellsworth, and other 
 important points, accurate drawings of 
 which had been furnished to our com- 
 manding officer by me." Doubtless it 
 was these same drawings concerning 
 which the New York Herald commented 
 editorially a month later: 
 
 . . . We have in this little matter [Mrs. 
 Greenhow's arrest] a clue to the mystery 
 of those important government maps and 
 
 ^ 
 
 'ti"p"f^ 
 
 Mrs- Greenhow and her Daughter 
 From a War-time Photograph 
 
 plans which the rebels lately left behind them 
 in their hasty flight from Fairfax Court- 
 house, . . . and we are at liberty to guess 
 how Beauregard was so minutely informed 
 of this advance, and of our plan of attack on 
 his lines, as to be ready to meet it at every 
 salient point with overwhelming numbers. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Greenhow — from the very 
 first doomed to 
 disaster. Her 
 
 maps and plans 
 ( if these, indeed, 
 were hers) were 
 allowed to fall 
 into the enemy's 
 hands; despatches 
 were sent to her 
 by an ill - chosen 
 messenger, who, 
 too late, was dis- 
 covered to be a 
 sp - for the Fed- 
 eral War Depart- 
 ment ; her very 
 cipher code, given 
 her by Colonel 
 Jordan, proved to 
 be an amateurish 
 affair that was 
 readily deciphered 
 by the Federal 
 War Office. She 
 never had a 
 chance to escape 
 detection. Con- 
 cerning the ci- 
 pher, Colonel Jor- 
 dan wrote to Confederate Secretary of 
 War Judah P. Benjamin, October, '61 
 (the letter was found in the archives of 
 Richmond four years later) : " This ci- 
 pher I arranged last April. Being my 
 first attempt and hastily devised it may 
 be deciphered by any expert, as I found 
 after use of it for a time. . . . That does 
 not matter as of course I used it with 
 but the lady, and with her it has served 
 our purpose. . . ." It had, indeed, served 
 their purpose, but in serving it had 
 brought imprisonment and ruin to the 
 woman. 
 
 When the War Department began to 
 shake itself free from the staggering 
 burden placed upon it by the rout at 
 Bull Run, almost its first step was to 
 seek out the source of the steady and 
 swift-flowing stream of information to 
 
566 
 
 HARPER'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE 
 
 Richmond. Suspicion at once fell upon 
 Mrs. Greenhow. Many expressed their 
 secession sentiments as openly as did she, 
 but there was none other who possessed 
 her opportunities for obtaining Federal 
 secrets. Federal officers and officials con- 
 tinued their pleasant social relations with 
 her, and she was believed by the War 
 Office to be influencing some of these. 
 Thomas A. Scott, Assistant Secretary of 
 War, sent for Allan Pinkerton and in- 
 structed him to place ' Mrs. Greenhow 
 under surveillance; her house was to be 
 constantly watched, as well as all visitors 
 from the moment they were seen to enter 
 or to leave it, and, should any of these 
 visitors later attempt to go South, they 
 were immediately to be arrested. The 
 watch on the house continued for some 
 days ; many prominent gentlemen called 
 — men whose loyalty was above question. 
 Then on the night of August 22d, while 
 Pinkerton and several of his men watched 
 during a hard storm, an officer of the 
 Federal army entered the house. Pinker- 
 ton removed his shoes and stood on the 
 shoulders of one of his men that he 
 might watch and listen at a crack in the 
 shutters. When the officer left the house 
 he was followed by Pinkerton (still in 
 his stocking feet) and one of his de- 
 tectives. Turning suddenly, the officer 
 discovered that he was being followed ; 
 he broke into a run, and the three of 
 them raced through the deserted, rain- 
 swept streets straight to the door of a 
 station of the Provost - Marshal. The 
 pursued had maintained his lead and 
 reached the station first; he was its 
 commanding officer, and instantly turned 
 out the guard. Allan Pinkerton and his 
 agent suddenly found that the quarry 
 had bagged the hunters. 
 
 The angry officer refused to send word 
 for them to Secretary Scott, to General 
 McClellan, to the Provost-Marshal — to 
 any one! He clapped them into the 
 guard-house — " a most filthy and uncom- 
 fortable place " — and left them there, 
 wet and bedraggled, among the crowd of 
 drunken soldiers and common prisoners 
 of the streets. In the morning, when the 
 guard was relieved, one of them, whom 
 Pinkerton had bribed, carried a message 
 to Secretary Scotf, by whom they were 
 at once set free. In his report Allan 
 Pinkerton says: 
 
 . . . The officer then [immediately after 
 Pinkerton was put under arrest] went up- 
 stairs while I halted and looked at my 
 watch. Said officer returned in twenty min- 
 utes with a revolver in his hand, saying that 
 he went up-stairs on purpose to get the re- 
 volver. The inquiry arises, was it for that 
 purpose he stayed thus, or for the more 
 probable one of hiding or destroying the 
 evidence. of his guilt obtained of Mrs. Green- 
 how or furnished to her? . . . 
 
 This report goes no further into the 
 charge, but that very day, August 23d, 
 within a few hours of his release, Allan 
 Pinkerton placed Mrs. Greenhow under 
 arrest as a spy. 
 
 Of the events of that fateful Friday 
 Mrs. Greenhow has left a graphic record, 
 complete save that it does not tell why 
 such events need ever have been, for she 
 had been warned of her proposed arrest — 
 warned in ample time at least to have 
 attempted an escape. The message which 
 told of the impending blow had been sent 
 1o her, Mrs. Greenhow tells, by a lady 
 in Georgetown, to whom one of General 
 McClellan's aides had given the informa- 
 tion. The note said also that the Hon. 
 William Presfon, Minister to Spain until 
 the outbreak of the war, was likewise 
 to be arrested. To him Mrs. Greenhow 
 passed on the warning, and he safely 
 reached the Confederate army. But 
 Mrs. Greenhow — why did she stay? 
 Did escape seem so improbable that she 
 dared not run the risk of indubitably 
 convicting herself by an attempted flight? 
 Did she underestimate the gravity of her 
 situation and depend upon " influence " 
 to save her ? Or was it. after all, some 
 Casabianca-like folly of remaining at her 
 "post" until the end? Whatever the 
 reason, she stayed. 
 
 Day after day she waited for the warn- 
 ing's fulfilment. Though waiting, she 
 worked on. " 'Twas very exciting,"' she 
 told a friend long afterward. " T would 
 be walking down the Avenue with one 
 of the officials, military or state, and as 
 we strolled along there would pass — 
 perhaps a washerwoman carrying home 
 her basket of clean clothes, or. maybe, a 
 gaily attired youth from lower Seventh 
 Avenue; but something in the way the 
 woman held her basket, or in the way 
 the youth twirled his cane, told me that 
 news had been received, or that news was 
 
MES. GREENHOW 
 
 567 
 
 wanted — that I must open up communi- 
 cations in some way. Or as we sat in 
 some city park a sedate old gentleman 
 would pass by: to my unsuspecting escort 
 the passer-by was but commonplace, but 
 to me his manner of polishing- his glasses, 
 or the flourish of the handkerchief with 
 which he rubbed his nose, was a message.'' 
 
 Days full of 
 anxious forebod- 
 ings sped by until 
 the morning of 
 the 23d of August 
 dawned, .oppres- 
 sively sultry after 
 the night of rain 
 which had so be- 
 draggled A 1 1 a n 
 Pinkerton and his 
 detective. At 
 about eleven 
 o'clock that morn- 
 ing Mrs. Green- 
 how was return- 
 ing home from a 
 promenade with 
 a distinguished 
 member of the 
 diplomatic corps, 
 but for whose 
 escort she believed 
 she would have 
 been arrested 
 sooner, for she 
 
 knew she was being followed. Excusing 
 herself to her escort, she stopped to in- 
 quire for the sick child of a neighbor, 
 and there they warned her that her house 
 was being watched. So, then, the time 
 had come! As she paused at her neigh- 
 bor's door, perhaps for the moment a 
 trifle irresolute, one of her " humble 
 agents " chanced to be coming that way ; 
 farther down the street two men were 
 watching her; she knew their mission. 
 
 To her passing agent she called, softly: 
 " I think that I am about to be arrested. 
 Watch from Corcoran's corner. I shall 
 raise my handkerchief to my face if they 
 arrest me. Give information of it." 
 Then she slowly crossed the street to 
 her house. She had several important 
 papers with her that morning; one, a 
 tiny note, she put into her mouth and 
 destroyed; the other, a letter in cipher, 
 she was unable to get from her pocket 
 without being observed; for the oppor- 
 
 Little Rose Greenhow 
 From a War-time Photograph 
 
 tunity to destroy it she must trust to 
 chance. As she mounted the short flight 
 of steps to her door, the two men — Allan 
 Pinkerton and his operative, who had 
 followed her rapidly — reached the foot 
 of the steps. She turned and faced 
 them, waiting for them to speak. 
 ''Is this Mrs. Greenhow?" 
 
 "Yes," she re- 
 plied, coldly. As 
 they still hesi- 
 tated, she asked, 
 " Who are you, 
 and what do you 
 want ?" 
 
 " I have come 
 to arrest you," 
 Pinkerton an- 
 swered, shortly. 
 
 " By what au- 
 thority ? Let me 
 see your war- 
 rant," she de- 
 manded, bravely 
 enough except for 
 what seemed a 
 nervous move- 
 ment of the flut- 
 tering handker- 
 chief. To the 
 detectives, if they 
 noticed it, it was 
 but the tremulous 
 gesture of a wom- 
 an's fright. To the agent lingering at 
 Corcoran's corner it was the signal. 
 
 " I have no power to resist you," she 
 said ; " but, had I been inside of my house 
 I would have killed one of you before 
 I had submitted to this illegal process." 
 They followed her into her house and 
 closed the door. 
 
 " It seemed but a moment," she tells, 
 " before the house became filled with 
 men, and an indiscriminate search com- 
 menced. Men rushed with frantic haste 
 into my chamber, into every sanctuary. 
 Beds, drawers, wardrobes, soiled linen — ■ 
 search was made everywhere ! Even 
 scraps of paper — childrens' unlettered 
 scribblings — were seized and tortured 
 into dangerous correspondence with the 
 enemy." 
 
 It was a very hot day. She asked to 
 be allowed to change her dress, and per- 
 mission was grudgingly given her, but 
 almost immediately a detective followed 
 
The Old Capitol Prison 
 
 to her bedroom, calling, "Madam! 
 Madam!" and flung open the door. She 
 barely had had time to destroy the cipher 
 note that was in her pocket. Very short- 
 ly afterward a woman detective arrived, 
 and " I was allowed the poor privilege 
 of unfastening my own garments, which 
 one by one were received by this pseudo- 
 woman and carefully examined." 
 
 Though wild confusion existed within 
 the house, no sign of it was allowed to 
 show itself from without, for the house 
 was now a trap, baited and set ; behind 
 the doors detectives waited to seize all 
 who, ignorant of the fate of its owner, 
 might call. Anxious to save her friends, 
 and fearful, too, lest she be compromised 
 further by papers which might be found 
 on them when searched, Mrs. Green- 
 how sought means to warn them away. 
 The frightened servants were all under 
 guard, bul there was one member of 
 I he household whose freedom was not yet 
 taken from hoi - — Mrs. Greenhow's daugh- 
 ter, Rose, a child of eight. It is her 
 letters which have supplied many of the 
 details for this story. Of that day, so 
 full of terror and bewilderment, the mem- 
 
 ory which stands out most clear to her 
 is that of climbing a tree in the garden 
 and from there calling to all the passers- 
 by : " Mother has been arrested ! Mother 
 has been arrested!" until the detectives 
 in the house heard her. and angrily 
 dragged her. weeping, from the tree. 
 
 But in spite of the efforts of the 
 " humble agent " who had waited at Cor- 
 coran's corner for the handkerchief 
 signal, in spite of the sacrifice of little 
 Rose's freedom, the trap that day was 
 sprung many times. Miss Mackall and 
 her sister, close friends of Mrs. Green- 
 hew, were seized as they crossed the 
 threshold, and searched and detained. 
 Their mother, coming to find her daugh- 
 ters, became with them a prisoner. A 
 negro girl — a former servant — and her 
 brother, who were merely passing the 
 house, were induced to enter it. and for 
 hours subjected to an inquisition. 
 
 Night came, and the men left in 
 charge grew boisterous; an argument 
 started among them. Mrs. Greenhow 
 tells — with keen enjoyment — of having 
 egged en the disputants, pitting nation- 
 ality against nationality — English, Ger- 
 
MRS. GBEENHOW 
 
 569 
 
 man, Irish, Yankee — so that in the still 
 night their loud, angry voices might 
 serve as a danger signal to her friends. 
 But the dispute died out at last — too soon 
 to save two gentlemen who called late 
 that evening, a call which cost them 
 months of imprisonment on the never- 
 proved charge of heing engaged in 
 " contraband and treasonable correspond- 
 ence with the Confederates." 
 
 Soon after midnight there came the 
 brief relaxing of vigilance for which 
 Mrs. Greenhow had watched expectantly 
 all day. She had taken the resolution 
 to fire the house if she did not succeed 
 in obtaining certain papers in the course 
 of the night, for she had no hope that 
 they would escape a second day's search. 
 But now the time for making the at- 
 tempt had come, and she stole noise- 
 lessly into the dark library. From the 
 topmost shelf she took down a book, be- 
 tween whose leaves lay the coveted 
 despatch; concealing it in the folds of 
 her dress, she swiftly regained her room. 
 A few moments later the guard returned 
 to his post at her open door. 
 
 She had been permitted the companion- 
 ship of Miss Mackall, and now as the 
 two women reclined on the bed they 
 planned how they might get the despatch 
 out of the house. When Mrs. Greenhow 
 had been searched that afternoon her 
 shoes and stockings had not been ex- 
 amined, and so, trusting to the slim 
 chance that Miss MackalFs would like- 
 wise escape examination, it was deter- 
 mined that the despatch should be hid- 
 den in her stocking; and this — since the 
 room was in darkness save for the faint 
 light from the open door, and the bed 
 stood in deep shadow — was accomplished 
 in the very presence of the guard. They 
 planned that should Miss Mackall, when 
 about to be released, have reason to be- 
 lieve she was to be searched carefully, 
 she must then be seized with compunc- 
 tion at leaving her friend, and return. 
 
 Between three and four o'clock Satur- 
 day morning those friends who had been 
 detained were permitted to depart (ex- 
 cept the two gentlemen, who, some hours 
 before, had been taken to the Frovost- 
 Marshal), and with Miss Mackall went 
 in safety the despatch for whose destruc- 
 tion Mrs. Greenhow would have burned 
 her house. 
 
 Vol. CXXIV.— No. 742.— 71 
 
 But though she had destroyed or saved 
 much dangerous correspondence, there 
 fell into the hands of the Federal secret 
 service much more of her correspondence, 
 by which were dragged into the net many 
 of her friends and agents. A letter in 
 cipher addressed to Thomas John Bay- 
 ford in part read: 
 
 Your three last despatches I never got. 
 Those by Applegate were betrayed by him 
 to the War Department ; also the one sent 
 by our other channel was destroyed by 
 Van Camp. 
 
 Dr. Aaron Van Camp, charged with 
 being a spy, was arrested, and cast into 
 the Old Capitol Frison. In a stove in 
 the Greenhow house were found, and 
 pieced together, the fragments of a note 
 from Donellan, the messenger who had 
 carried her despatch to Beauregard be- 
 fore Bull Eun. The note introduced 
 " Colonel Thompson, the bearer, . . . 
 [who] will be happy to take from your 
 hands any communications and obey your 
 injunctions as to disposition of same with 
 despatch." The arrest of Colonel Thomp- 
 son, as of Mrs. Greenhow, involved oth- 
 ers; it was all like a house of cards — 
 by the arrest of Mrs. Greenhow the whole 
 flimsy structure had been brought crash- 
 ing clown. 
 
 Of the days which followed the be- 
 ginning of Mrs. Greenhow's imprison- 
 ment in her own house, few were devoid 
 of excitement of some sort. After a 
 few days Miss Mackall had obtained 
 permission to return and share her 
 friend's captivity. It was she who fortu- 
 nately found and destroyed a sheet of 
 blotting-paper which bore the perfect im- 
 print of the Bull Eun despatch! The 
 detectives remained in charge for seven 
 days; they examined every book in the 
 library leaf by leaf (too late!); boxes 
 containing books, china, and glass that 
 had been packed away for months were 
 likewise minutely examined. Fortions • 
 of the furniture were taken apart; pic- 
 tures removed from their frames; beds 
 overturned many times. 
 
 " Seemingly I was treated with defer- 
 ence," Mrs. Greenhow tells. " Once only 
 were violent hands put upon my person 
 — the detective, Captain Denis, having 
 rudely seized me to prevent me giving 
 warning to a lady and gentleman on the 
 
570 
 
 HARPER'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE 
 
 first evening of my arrest (which I suc- 
 ceeded in doing)." She was permitted 
 to be alone scarcely a moment. " If I 
 wished to lie down, he was seated a few 
 paces from my bed. If I desired to 
 change my dress, it was obliged to be 
 done with open doors. . . . They still 
 presumed to seat themselves at table with 
 me, with unwashed hands and shirt- 
 sleeves." Only a few months before this 
 the President of the United States had 
 dined frequently at that very table. 
 
 Her jailers sought to be bribed to 
 carry messages for her — in order to be- 
 tray her; their hands were ever out- 
 stretched. One set himself the pleasant 
 task of making love to her maid, Lizzie 
 Fitzgerald, a quick-witted Irish girl, who 
 entered keenly into the sport of senti- 
 mental walks and treats at Uncle Sam's 
 expense — and, of course, revealed noth- 
 ing. 
 
 On Friday morning, the 30th of Au- 
 gust, Mrs. Greenhow was informed that 
 other prisoners were to be brought in, 
 and that her house was to be converted 
 into a prison. A lieutenant and twenty- 
 one men of the Sturgis Rifles (General 
 McClellan's body-guard) were now placed 
 in charge instead of the detective police. 
 The house began to fill with other 
 prisoners — all women. The once quiet 
 and unpretentious residence at 398 Six- 
 teenth Street became known as " Fort 
 Greenhow," and an object of intense in- 
 terest to the crowds that came to stare 
 at it — which provoked from the New 
 York Times the caustic comment: 
 
 Had Madam Greenhow been sent South 
 immediately after her arrest, as we recom- 
 mended, we should have heard no more of the 
 heroic deeds of Secesh women, which she has 
 made the fashion. 
 
 Had the gaping crowds known what the 
 harassed sentries knew, they would have 
 stared with better cause. They sought 
 to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Greenhow 
 because of what she had done ; the guards' 
 chief concern was with the Mrs. Greenhow 
 of the present moment. For during the 
 entire time that she was a prisoner in 
 her own house Mrs. Greenhow was in 
 frequent communication with the South. 
 How she accomplished the seemingly im- 
 possible will never be fully known. 
 
 She tells of information being con- 
 
 veyed to her by her " little bird " ; of 
 preparing " those peculiar, square de- 
 spatches to be forwarded to our great 
 and good President at Richmond " ; of 
 " tapestry-work in a vocabulary of colors, 
 which, though not a very prolific language, 
 served my purpose " ; and she gives, as 
 an example of many such, " a seemingly 
 innocent letter," which seems innocent, 
 indeed, and must forever remain so, since 
 she does not supply the key whereby its 
 hidden meaning may be understood. 
 
 Then there is the story of the ball of 
 pink knitting-yarn, a story which, un- 
 like the yarn ball, was never unwound 
 to lay its innermost secrets bare. Now 
 and then the prisoners passed one another 
 when being marched for their period of 
 exercise in the garden or back into 
 the house again; and it was thus that 
 Mrs. Greenhow one day met Mrs. Philips 
 in the hall. Behind each stalked an 
 armed guard; the ladies might not pause 
 even long enough to bid each other good 
 day. But as she passed on into the 
 house, Mrs. Philips called, " I found your 
 ball of pink yarn in the shrub-bush under 
 your window, and tossed it into your 
 room." Pink yarn ! Women - talk ! — 
 not worth a soldier's heed, and the 
 sentries gave -it none. Out in the gar- 
 den Mrs. Greenhow restlessly paced up 
 and down; for the first time the brief 
 half-hour seemed too long; for the first 
 time, too, she was glad to be marched 
 back to her room again. Yes! there on 
 the floor in a band of sunlight lay the 
 pink ball — safe. As she dropped it care- 
 lessly into her work-basket the guard 
 watched her narrowly, then again lan- 
 guidly seated himself at her door. That 
 is all of the story — except that the ball 
 of pink yarn was wound around a little 
 roll of paper, a cipher message from the 
 South. 
 
 By such means she was able to outwit 
 her many guards — though not as in- 
 variably as at the time she believed that 
 she had done. Allan Pinkerton reports 
 to the War Department, with a mixture 
 of irritation and complacency: 
 
 She has not ceased to lay plans, to at- 
 tempt the bribery of officers having her in 
 charge, to make use of signs from the win- 
 dows of her house to her friends on the 
 streets, to communicate with such friends 
 and through them as she supposed send in- 
 
^y ~ a " ""] 
 
 
 
 ; 1 1 
 
 'nil 
 
 
 
 IIw^mIw* 
 
 ^^ L** yP 
 
 |k 
 
 & M : '■■} 'fff^^^T^Sff 
 
 
 SESo ■"** - 
 
 
 IMP 
 
 Drawn by Stanley M. Arthurs 
 
 THE BARRED WINDOW LOOKED OUT UPON THE PRISON YARD 
 
MRS. GREENHOW 
 
 571 
 
 formation to the rebels in ciphers requiring 
 much time to decipher — all of which she sup- 
 posed she was doing through an officer who 
 had her in charge and whom she supposed 
 she had bribed to that purpose, but who, 
 faithful to his trust, laid her communica- 
 tions before yourself. 
 
 But Mrs. Greenhow evidently made use 
 of other channels as well, for the copy 
 of her first letter to Secretary Seward 
 safely reached the hands of those friends 
 to whom it was addressed, and by them 
 it was published in the newspapers, 
 North and South, thereby showing to all 
 the world that a tendril of the grape- 
 vine telegraph still reached out from 
 " Fort Greenhow." It was not this alone 
 which made officialdom and the public 
 gasp — it was the letter itself. In tone 
 it was calm, almost dispassionate — a mas- 
 terly letter. The blunt Anglo-Saxon 
 words which set forth in detail the in- 
 dignities which she suffered from, the 
 unceasing watch kept over her came like 
 so many blows. She pointed out that 
 her arrest had been without warrant; 
 that her house and all its contents had 
 been seized, and that she herself had 
 been held a prisoner more than three 
 months without a trial, and that she was 
 yet ignorant of the charge against her. 
 The letter was strong, simple, dignified, 
 but it brought no reply. 
 
 The heat of midsummer had passed 
 and autumn had come, and with it 
 many changes. Miss Mackall was one 
 day abruptly taken away and sent to 
 her own home; the two friends were 
 never to meet again. Other prisoners 
 were freed or transferred elsewhere, and 
 yet others came — among them a Miss 
 Poole, who almost immediately sought 
 to curry favor by reporting that little 
 Eose, who for some time had been al- 
 lowed to play, under guard, on the pave- 
 ment, had received a communication for 
 her mother; and the child was again 
 confined within the four walls. " This was 
 perhaps my hardest trial — to see my lit- 
 tle one pining and fading under my eyes 
 for want of food and air. The health 
 and spirits of my faithful maid also 
 began to fail." The attempt of several 
 of the guard to communicate informa- 
 tion was likewise reported by Miss Poole, 
 and the thumb-screws of discipline were 
 tightened by many turns. The kindly 
 
 officer of the guard, Lieutenant Sheldon, 
 was ordered to hold no personal com- 
 munication with Mrs. Greenhow; the 
 guard was set as spies upon one another 
 and upon him; they, too, were forbidden 
 under severe penalty to speak to her or to 
 answer her questions. An order was 
 issued prohibiting her from purchasing 
 newspapers, or being informed of their 
 contents. At times it seemed as though 
 her house, and she in it, had been swal- 
 lowed, and now lay within the four walls 
 of a Chillon or a Chateau d'lf; it was 
 added bitterness to her to look about the 
 familiar room and remember that once it 
 had been home ! 
 
 Miss Mackall had been making cease- 
 less efforts to be allowed to visit her 
 friend, but permission was steadily de- 
 nied. Then the news sifted into " Fort 
 Greenhow," and reached its one-time 
 mistress, that Miss Mackall was ill, 
 desperately ill; for the first time Mrs. 
 Greenhow ceased to demand — she pleaded 
 to see her friend ; and failed. Then came 
 the news that Miss Mackall was dead. 
 
 Among those friends of the old days 
 who now and then were allowed to call 
 was Edwin M. Stanton, not yet Secre- 
 tary of War. Mrs. Greenhow endeavored 
 to engage him as counsel to obtain for 
 her a writ of habeas corpus, but he 
 declined. 
 
 Friends — with dubious tact — smuggled 
 to her newspaper clippings in which the 
 statement was made that " Mrs. Green- 
 how had lost her mind," and that " it is 
 rumored that the government is about 
 to remove her to a private lunatic 
 asylum." "My blood freezes even now," 
 she wrote, " when I recall my feelings 
 at the reception of this communication, 
 and I wonder that I had not gone mad." 
 When the Judge-Advocate, making a 
 friendly, "unofficial" call, asked, "To 
 what terms would you be willing to sub- 
 scribe for your release ?" she replied, with 
 unbroken courage: 
 
 " None, sir ! I demand my uncondi- 
 tional release, indemnity for losses, and 
 the restoration of my papers and effects." 
 
 The day after Christmas Mrs. Green- 
 how wrote two letters. The one, in 
 cipher, was found in the archives of 
 the Confederate War Department when 
 Eichmond was evacuated ; it was deciph- 
 ered and published in the Official Eecords : 
 
572 
 
 HARPER'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE 
 
 December 20th 
 In a day or two 1,200 cavalry supported 
 by four batteries of artillery will cross the 
 river above to get behind Manassas and cut 
 off railroad and o_ther communications with 
 our army whilst an attack is made in front. 
 For God's sake heed this. It is positive. . . . 
 
 The grape-vine telegraph lines were still 
 clear both into and out of " Port Green- 
 how." 
 
 The other was a second letter to Secre- 
 tary Seward — a very different sort of 
 letter from the first, being but a tirade 
 on the ethics of the Southern cause, pur- 
 poseless, save that " Contempt and de- 
 fiance alone actuated me. I had known 
 Seward intimately, and he had frequently 
 enjoyed the hospitalities of my table." 
 Unlike its worthy predecessor, this letter 
 was to bear fruit. 
 
 On the morning of the 5th of January 
 a search was again commenced through- 
 out the house. The police were search- 
 ing for the copy of the second letter. 
 But, as in the first instance, the copy 
 had gone out simultaneously with the 
 original. When Mrs. Greenhow was al- 
 lowed to return to her room she found 
 that the window had been nailed up, 
 and every scrap of paper had been taken 
 from her writing-desk and table. 
 
 It was this copy of the second letter 
 to Secretary Seward which sent Mrs. 
 Greenhow to the Old Capitol Prison. 
 
 It was published as the first had been, 
 thereby clearly showing that Mrs. Green- 
 how was still able to communicate with 
 the South almost at will in spite of all 
 efforts to prevent her. It was the last 
 straw. The State Department acted 
 swiftly. On January 18th came the 
 order for Mrs. Greenhow to prepare for 
 immediate removal elsewhere ; two hours 
 later she parted from her faithful and 
 weeping maid, and she and the little 
 Rose left their home forever. Between 
 the doorstep and the carriage was a 
 double file of soldiers, between whom she 
 passed; at the carrinso — still holding 
 little Rose by the hand — she turned on 
 the soldiers indignantly. "May your 
 next duty he a more honorable one than 
 that of guarding helpless women and 
 children," she said. 
 
 Dusk had fallen ere the carriage 
 nai-bcd the Old Capitol; here, too, a 
 guard was drawn up under arms to pre- 
 
 vent any attempt at rescue. The receiv- 
 ing - room of the prison was crowded 
 with officers and civilians, all peering 
 curiously. Half an hour later she and 
 the child were marched into a room very 
 different from that which they had left 
 in the house in Sixteenth Street. The 
 room, 10.x 12, was on the second floor 
 of the back building of the prison ; its 
 only window (over which special bars 
 were placed next day) looked out upon 
 the prison-yard. A narrow bed, on which 
 was a straw mattress covered by a pair 
 of unwashed cotton sheets, a small feather 
 pillow, dingy and dirty, a few wooden 
 chairs, a table, and a cracked mirror, 
 furnished the room which from that 
 night was to be theirs during months of 
 heart-breaking imprisonment. 
 
 An understanding of those bitter days 
 can be given best by extracts from her 
 diary: 
 
 " January 25ih. — I have been one week 
 in my new prison. My letters now all go 
 through the detective police, who sub- 
 ject them to a chemical process to extract 
 the treason. In one of the newspaper 
 accounts I am supposed to use sympa- 
 thetic ink. I purposely left a preparation 
 very conspicuously placed, in order to 
 divert attention from, my real means of 
 communication, and they have swallowed 
 the bait and fancy my friends are at 
 their mercy. January 28th. — This day as 
 I stood at my barred window the guard 
 rudely called ' Go 'way from that win- 
 dow!' and leveled his musket at me. 
 I maintained my position without eon- 
 descending to notice him, whereupon he 
 called the corporal of the guard. I called 
 also for the officer of the guard, . . . 
 who informed me that I must not go 
 to the window. I quietly told him that, 
 at whatever peril, I should avail myself 
 of the largest liberty of the four wall* 
 of my prison. He told me that his guard 
 would have orders to fire upon me. I 
 had no idea that such monstrous regula- 
 tions existed. To-day the dinner for my- 
 self and child consists of a bowl of beans 
 swimming in grease, two slices of fat 
 junk, and two slices of bread. ... I was 
 very often intruded upon by large parties 
 of Yankees, who came with passes from 
 the Provost - Marshal to stare at me. 
 Sometimes I was amused, and generally 
 contrived to find out what was going on. 
 
MRS. GREENHOW 
 
 573 
 
 . . . Afterward I requested the super- 
 intendent not to allow a,ny more of these 
 parties to have access to me. He told 
 me that numbers daily came to the prison 
 who would gladly give him ten dollars 
 apiece to be allowed to pass my open 
 door. March Sd. — Since two days we are 
 actually allowed a half -hour's exercise in 
 the prison-yard, where we walk up and 
 down, picking our way as best we can 
 through mud and negroes, followed by 
 soldiers and corporals, bayonets in hand. 
 . . . Last night I put my candle on the 
 window, in order to get something out 
 of my trunk near which it stood, all 
 unconscious of committing any offense 
 against prison discipline, when the guard 
 below called, ' Put out that light !' I gave 
 no heed, but only lighted another, where- 
 upon several voices took up the cry, add- 
 ing, ' Damn you, I will fire into your 
 room !' Rose was in a state of great 
 delight, and collected all the ends of 
 candles to add to the illumination. By 
 this the clank of arms and patter of feet, 
 in conjunction with the furious rapping 
 at my door, with a demand to open it, 
 announced the advent of corporal and 
 sergeant. My door was now secured in- 
 side by a bolt which had been allowed 
 me. I asked their business. Answer, 
 ' You are making signals, and must re- 
 move your lights from the window.' I 
 said, ' But it suits my convenience to 
 keep them there.' ' We will break open 
 your door if you don't open it.' ' Ton 
 will act as you see fit, but it will be at 
 your peril!' They did not dare to carry 
 out this threat, as they knew that I had 
 a very admirable pistol on my mantel- 
 piece, restored to me a short time since, 
 although they did not know that I had 
 no ammunition for it." The candles 
 burned themselves out, and that ended 
 it, save that next day, by order of the 
 Provost-Marshal, the pistol was taken 
 from the prisoner. 
 
 But it was not all a merry baiting of 
 the guards — there was hardship con- 
 nected with this imprisonment. In spite 
 of the folded clothing placed on the hard 
 bed, the child used to cry out in the 
 night, " Oh, mamma, mamma, the bed 
 hurts me so!" The rooms above were 
 filled with negroes. " The tramping and 
 screaming of negro children overhead was 
 most dreadful." Worse than mere sound 
 
 came from these other prisoners: there 
 came disease. Smallpox broke out among 
 them, also the lesser disease, camp 
 measles, which latter was contracted by 
 the little Rose. She, too, had her mem- 
 ories of the Old Capitol; in a recent 
 letter she wrote : 
 
 " I do not remember very much about 
 our imprisonment except that I used to 
 cry myself to sleep from hunger. . . . 
 There was a tiny closet in our room in 
 which mother contrived to loosen a plank 
 that she would lift up, and the prisoners 
 of war underneath would catch hold of 
 my legs and lower me into their room; 
 they were allowed to receive fruit, etc., 
 from the outside, and generously shared 
 with me, also they would give mother 
 news of the outside world." Thus the 
 days passed until Mrs. Greenhow was 
 summoned to appear, March 25th, before 
 the United States Commissioners for the 
 Trial of State Prisoners. 
 
 Of this " trial " the only record avail- 
 able is her own — rather too flippant 
 in tone to be wholly convincing as 
 to its entire sincerity. Her account 
 begins soberly enough : the cold, raw 
 day, the slowly falling snow, the mud 
 through which the carriage labored to 
 the office of the Provost - Marshal in 
 what had been the residence of Senator 
 Guin — " one of the most elegant in the 
 city; . . . my mind instinctively reverted 
 to the gay and brilliant scenes in which 
 I had mingled in that house, and the 
 goodly company who had enjoyed its 
 hospitality." There was a long wait in 
 a fireless anteroom; then she was led be- 
 fore the Commissioners for her. trial. 
 " My name was announced, and the Com- 
 missioners advanced to receive me with 
 ill-concealed embarrassment. I bowed to 
 themi, saying : ' Gentlemen, resume your 
 seats. I recognize the embarrassment of 
 your positions; it was a mistake on the 
 part of your government to have selected 
 gentlemen for this mission. Tou have, 
 however, shown me but scant courtesy in 
 having kept me waiting your pleasure 
 for nearly an hour in the cold.' " The 
 prisoner took her place at the long table, 
 midway between the two Commissioners, 
 one of whom, General Dix, was a former 
 friend; at smaller tables were several 
 secretaries; if there were any spectators 
 other than the newspaper reporters, she 
 
574 
 
 HARPER'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE 
 
 makes no mention of them. The trial 
 began. 
 
 " One of the reporters now said, ' If 
 you please, speak a little louder, mad- 
 am.' I rose from my seat, and said to 
 General Dix, ' If it is your object to 
 make a spectacle of me, and furnish re- 
 ports for the newspapers, I shall have 
 the honor to withdraw from this pres- 
 ence.' Hereupon both Commissioners 
 arose and protested that they had no 
 such intention, but that it was necessary 
 to take notes. . . ." The examination 
 then continued " in a strain in no respect 
 different from that of an ordinary con- 
 versation held in a drawing-room, and 
 to which I replied sarcastically, . . . and 
 a careless listener would have imagined 
 that the Commission was endeavoring 
 with plausible arguments to defend the 
 government rather than to incriminate 
 me. . . ." The other Commissioner then 
 said, " ' General Dix, you are so much 
 better acquainted with Mrs. Greenhow, 
 suppose you continue the examination?' 
 I laughingly said, ' Commence it, for I 
 hold that it has not begun.' " Mrs. 
 Greenhow's account makes no mention 
 of any witnesses either for or against 
 her; the evidence seems to have consisted 
 solely in the papers found in her house. 
 The whole examination — as she records 
 it — may be summed up in the following 
 questions and answers: 
 
 " ' Tou are charged with treason.' ' I 
 deny it !' ' You are charged, madam, with 
 having caused a letter which you wrote 
 to the Secretary of State to be published 
 in Richmond.' ' That can hardly be 
 brought forward as one of the causes of 
 my arrest, for I had been some three 
 months a prisoner when that letter was 
 written.' ' You are charged, madam, 
 with holding communication with the 
 enemy in the South.' ' If this were an 
 established fact, you could not be sur- 
 prised at it; I am a Southern woman.' 
 . . . ' How is it, madam, that you have 
 managed to communicate, in spite of the 
 vigilance exercised over you?' 'That is 
 my secret!'" And that was practically 
 the end, save that the prisoner said she 
 would refuse to take the oath of al- 
 legiance if this opportunity to be freed 
 were offered her. 
 
 April 3d the superintendent of the 
 Old Capitol read to her a copy of the 
 
 decree of the Commission: she had been 
 sentenced to be . exiled. But the days 
 passed and nothing came of it. Tanta- 
 lized beyond endurance, she wrote that 
 she was " ready " to go South. General 
 McClellan, she was then told, had object- 
 ed to her being sent South at this time. 
 (Federal spies — secret-service men, who, 
 under Allan Pinkerton, had arrested Mrs. 
 Greenhow — were on trial for their lives 
 in Richmond; it was feared that, were 
 she sent South, her testimony would be 
 used against them.) " Day glides into 
 day with nothing to mark the flight of 
 time," the diary continues. " The heat 
 is intense, with the sun beating down upon 
 the house-top and in the windows. . . . 
 My child is looking pale and ill. . . . 
 Saturday, May 81st. — At two o'clock to- 
 day [Prison Superintendent] Wood came 
 in with the announcement that I was to 
 start at three o'clock for Baltimore." 
 The end of imprisonment had come as 
 suddenly as its beginning. 
 
 Disquieting rumors had been reaching 
 Mrs. Greenhow for some time in regard 
 to removal to Fort Warren. Was this, 
 after all, a mere Yankee trick to get her 
 there quietly? She was about to enter 
 the carriage that was to bear her from the 
 Old Capitol, when, unable longer to bear 
 the suspense, she turned suddenly to the 
 young lieutenant of the escort: " Sir, 
 ere I advance further, I ask you, not 
 as Lincoln's officer, but as a man of honor 
 and a gentleman, are your orders from 
 Baltimore to conduct me to a Northern 
 prison, or to some point in the Con- 
 federacy ?" " On my honor, madam," he 
 answered, "to conduct you to Fortress 
 Monroe and tbence to the Southern Con- 
 federacy." Her imprisonment had. in- 
 deed, ended. There was yet the Abolition- 
 soldier guard — on the way to the station, 
 on the cars, in Baltimore, on the steamer; 
 there was yet to he signed at Fortress 
 Monroe the parole in which, in considera- 
 1ion of being set at liberty, she pledged 
 her honor not to return north of the 
 Potomac during the war; but from that 
 moment at the carriage-door she felt her- 
 self no longer a prisoner. 
 
 To the query of the Provost-Marshal 
 at Fortress Monroe she replied that she 
 wished to be sent " to the capital of the 
 Confederacy, wherever that might be." 
 That was still Richmond, he told her, but 
 
Drawn by Stanley M. Arthurs Half-tone plate engraved by C. E. Hart 
 
 MRS. GREENHOW AND THE TWO OTHER PASSENGERS DEMANDED TO BE SET ASHORE 
 
MRS. GEEENHOW 
 
 575 
 
 it would be in Federal hands before she 
 could reach there. She would take 
 chances on that, was her laughing re- 
 joinder. And so she was set ashore at City 
 Point by a boat from the Monitor, and 
 next morning, June 4th., she and little 
 Eose, escorted by Confederate officers, ar- 
 rived in Eichmond. And there, " on the 
 evening of my arrival, our President did 
 me the honor to call on me, and his words 
 of greeting, ' But for you there would 
 have been no battle of Bull Bun,' repaid 
 me for all I had endured." 
 
 Could the story be told of the succeed- 
 ing twenty-seven months of Mrs. Green- 
 how's life, much of the secret history of 
 the Confederacy might be revealed. It is 
 improbable that the story ever will be 
 told. Months of effort to learn details 
 have resulted in but vague glimpses of 
 her, as one sees an ever-receding figure 
 at the turns of a winding road. Her 
 daughter Eose has written : " Whether 
 mother did anything for the Con- 
 federacy in Eichmond is more than I 
 can tell. I know that we went to 
 Charleston, South Carolina, and that she 
 saw General Beauregard there." Then 
 came weeks of waiting for the sailing of 
 a blockade - runner from Wilmington, 
 North Carolina; quiet, happy weeks they 
 were, perhaps the happiest she had known 
 since the war began. She was taking 
 little Eose to Paris, to place her in the 
 Convent of the Sacred Heart, she told 
 her new-made friends. One morning 
 1hey found that she and little Eose had 
 gone. A blockade-runner had slipped out 
 during the night and was on its way with 
 them to Bermuda. 
 
 Many have definitely asserted that Mrs. 
 Greenhow went to England and France 
 on a secret mission for the Confederacy. 
 No proof of this has ever been found, 
 but the little which has been learned of 
 her sojourn in Europe strongly supports 
 the theory of such a mission there. The 
 ship which bore them to England from 
 Bermuda was an English man-of-war, in 
 which they sailed " at President Davis's 
 especial request." Then there were 
 President Davis's personal letters to 
 Messrs. Mason and Slidell, requesting 
 them that they show to Mrs. Greenhow 
 every attention. In Prance she was given 
 a private audience with Napoleon III. ; 
 in London, presented to England's Queen. 
 
 A letter written to her by James Spence, 
 financial agent of the Confederates in 
 Liverpool, shows her to have been active- 
 ly engaged in support of the interests of 
 the South from her arrival in England. 
 But of any secret mission there is not a 
 trace — unless her book, My Imprison- 
 ment, or the First Year of Abolition 
 Rule in Washington, may thus be con- 
 sidered. The book was brought out in 
 November, 1863, by the well-known Eng- 
 lish publishing-house of Eiehard Bent- 
 ley & Son; immediately it made a pro- 
 found sensation in London — particularly 
 in the highest society circles, into which 
 Mrs. Greenhow had at once been re- 
 ceived. My Imprisonment was a brilliant 
 veneer of personal war-time experiences 
 laid alluringly over a solid backing of 
 Confederate States' propaganda. Eich- 
 mond may or may not have fathered it, 
 but that book in England served the 
 South well. * None who knew Mrs. 
 Greenhow ever forgot her charm; she 
 made friends everywhere — such friends as 
 Thomas Carlyle and Lady Pranklin, and 
 a score more whose names are nearly as 
 well known to-day. She was betrothed 
 to a prominent peer. 
 
 All in all, this is but scant information 
 to cover a period of more than two years. 
 Only one other fact has been obtained 
 regarding her life abroad, but it is most 
 significant in support of the belief that 
 she was a secret agent for the Con- 
 federacy. In August, 1864, Mrs. Green- 
 how left England suddenly and sailed 
 for Wilmington on the ship Condor. 
 Though her plans were to return al- 
 most at once, marry, and remain in 
 England, the fact that she left in Lon- 
 don her affianced husband, and her lit- 
 tle Eose in the Convent of the Sacred 
 Heart in Paris, while she herself risked 
 her life to run the blockade, seems 
 strong evidence that her business in the 
 Confederate States of America was im- 
 portant business, indeed. The Condor 
 was a three - funneled steamer, newly 
 built, and on her first trip as a blockade- 
 runner — a trade for which she was su- 
 perbly adapted, being swift as a sea- 
 swallow. She was commanded by a 
 veteran captain of the Crimean War — an 
 
 * Many of the passages in this article have 
 been quoted from Mrs. Greenhow's own 
 narrative. 
 
576 
 
 HAEPEE'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE 
 
 English officer on a year's leave, blockade- 
 running for adventure — Captain Au- 
 gustus Charles Hobart-Hampden, various- 
 ly known to the blockade-running fleet 
 as Captain Eoberts, Hewett, or Gulick. 
 
 On the night of September 30th the 
 Condor arrived opposite the mouth of 
 the Cape Fear Eiver, the entry for Wil- 
 mington, and in the darkness stole swift- 
 ly through the blockade. She was almost 
 in the mouth of the river, and not two 
 hundred yards from shore, when suddenly 
 there loomed up in the darkness a vessel 
 dead ahead. To the frightened pilot of 
 the Condor it was one of the Federal 
 squadron; he swerved his ship sharply, 
 and she drove hard on New Inlet bar. 
 In reality the ship which had caused the 
 damage was the wreck of the blockade- 
 runner Nigltthawk, which had been run 
 down the previous night. The Condor's 
 pilot sprang overboard and swam ashore. 
 Dawn was near breaking, and in the 
 now growing light the Federal blockaders 
 which had followed the Condor were seen 
 to be closing in. Though the Condor, 
 lying almost under the very guns of Fort 
 Fisher — which had begun firing at the 
 Federal ships and was holding them off — 
 
 was for the time being safe, yet Mrs. 
 Greenhow and the two other passengers, 
 Judge Holcombe and Lieutenant Wilson, 
 Confederate agents, demanded that they 
 be set ashore. There was little wind and 
 there had been no storm, but the tide- 
 rip ran high over the bar, and the boat 
 was lowered into heavy surf. Scarcely 
 was it clear of the tackles ere a great 
 wave caught it, and in an instant it was 
 overturned. Mrs. Greenhow, weighted 
 down by her heavy black silk dress and 
 a bag full of gold sovereigns, which she 
 had fastened round her waist, sank at 
 once and did not rise again. The others 
 succeeded in getting ashore. 
 
 The body of Mrs. Greenhow was washed 
 up on the beach next day. They buried 
 her in Wilmington — buried her with the 
 honors of war, and a Confederate flag 
 wrapped about her coffin. And every 
 Memorial Day since then there is laid 
 upon her grave a wreath of laurel leaves 
 such as is placed only upon the graves of 
 soldiers. Long ago the Ladies' Memo- 
 rial Society placed there a simple marble 
 cross, on which is carved : " Mrs. Eose 
 O'Neal Greenhow. A Bearer of De- 
 spatches to the Confederate Government." 
 
 When I am Gone 
 
 BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE 
 
 WHEN I am gone. 
 Over the silent sky 
 The birds will fly; 
 Ah! how the birds will sing — 
 When I am gone; 
 And the blue eye 
 
 Of some unborn and beautiful young thing 
 Will watch them fly, 
 
 And her young heart will break to hear them sing- 
 When I am gone. 
 

 UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 00032742774 
 
 FOR USE ONLY IN 
 THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION