PDF Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women; Violence; and the Archive (Early American Studies) by Marisa J. Fuentes in History

Description

For sheer bravado and style; no woman in the North or South rivaled the Civil War heroine Rose O’Neale Greenhow. Fearless spy for the Confederacy; glittering Washington hostess; legendary beauty and lover; Rose Greenhow risked everything for the cause she valued more than life itself. In this superb portrait; biographer Ann Blackman tells the surprising true story of a unique woman in history. “I am a Southern woman; born with revolutionary blood in my veins;” Rose once declared–and that fiery spirit would plunge her into the center of power and the thick of adventure. Born into a slave-holding family; Rose moved to Washington; D.C.; as a young woman and soon established herself as one of the capital’s most charming and influential socialites; an intimate of John C. Calhoun; James Buchanan; and Dolley Madison. She married well; bore eight children and buried five; and; at the height of the Gold Rush; accompanied her husband Robert Greenhow to San Francisco. Widowed after Robert died in a tragic accident; Rose became notorious in Washington for her daring–and numerous–love affairs.But with the outbreak of the Civil War; everything changed. Overnight; Rose Greenhow; fashionable hostess; become Rose Greenhow; intrepid spy. As Blackman reveals; deadly accurate intelligence that Rose supplied to General Pierre G. T. Beauregard written in a fascinating code (the code duplicated in the background on the jacket of this book). Her message to Beauregard turned the tide in the first Battle of Bull Run; and was a brilliant piece of spycraft that eventually led to her arrest by Allan Pinkerton and imprisonment with her young daughter. Indomitable; Rose regained her freedom and; as the war reached a crisis; journeyed to Europe to plead the Confederate cause at the royal courts of England and France. Drawing on newly discovered diaries and a rich trove of contemporary accounts; Blackman has fashioned a thrilling; intimate narrative that reads like a novel. Wild Rose is an unforgettable rendering of an astonishing woman; a book that will stand with the finest Civil War biographies.From the Hardcover edition.