Wild Rose

March 21, 2005
The biographer of Madeleine Albright and FBI turncoat Robert Hansen now turns her attention to the Civil War, yielding this excellent biography of Confederate spy Rose O'Neal Greenhow (1817–1864). Born into a Maryland farming family impoverished when her father was killed by one of his slaves, Rose grew up as one of the belles of Washington, D.C. Even after marrying the quiet, scholarly Robert Greenhow, she continued to play an active role in pro-Southern Washington, including nursing John C. Calhoun on his deathbed. The Greenhows traveled to California hoping to profit from the Gold Rush. After Robert's accidental death in San Francisco, Rose returned to Washington and became a prominent hostess and what would now be called a lobbyist, with many political contacts. She turned these into an espionage ring in time to provide intelligence to the Confederates for the Battle of Bull Run and continued her work until she was placed under house arrest, then confined in the Old Capitol Prison. Released to go South, she traveled to Europe as an emissary from Jefferson Davis to cultivate pro-Confederate notables. The course of the war doomed this mission, and she died in a shipwreck while returning home. Blackman presents her as a woman of both charm and intellect, well equipped to step politely across 19th-century gender boundaries. This literate and thoroughly researched biography does Greenhow justice. Agent, Todd Shuster.

May 1, 2005
Rising from genteel poverty to the nation's highest political circles, moving from intimate friend of President James Buchanan to spy for the Civil War South, Rose O'Neal Greenhow was lauded in the Confederacy but imprisoned by Lincoln and exiled from the North. Eventually, she was sent to Europe on a diplomatic mission by Jefferson Davis and died trying to run the Union blockade. Her life has escaped extensive examination for a generation. Here, journalist and biographer Blackman ("Seasons of Her Life") offers a comprehensive biography of this famous Civil War operative. Drawing on extensive documentation, including an unpublished travel diary, she explores Greenhow's early life as well as her better-known wartime work. While Blackman's decision to gloss over the details of Greenhow's espionage might disappoint those interested in Civil War spying, this readable and comprehensive biography offers new insight into her diplomatic mission to Europe. An imperative update on Ishbel Ross's 1954 classic "Rebel Rose", this biography is recommended for larger public and academic libraries. -Theresa McDevitt, Indiana Univ. of Pennsylvania Lib.

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2005
A grand dame of antebellum Washington, Rose O'Neale Greenhow was a Confederate spy. In jail, her stout defense of the South made her a Lost Cause heroine, and her celebrity, on a par with that of Elizabeth Van Lew (the subject of " Southern Lady, Yankee Spy," by Elizabeth Varon, 2003), ranks highest in the annals of Civil War espionage. Doing justice to this remarkable woman, author Blackman perceptively re-creates Greenhow's social and political milieu. From a slaveholding Maryland family, the beautiful Greenhow made an advantageous match to a State Department official and eventually became a vivid, sensual presence in the capital's social scene, popular with powerful men such as John Calhoun and James Buchanan. Greenhow's striking personality--confident, snobbish, and canny--is astutely portrayed amid an active narrative of her life, which ended in an 1864 shipwreck on her return from a European diplomatic mission as Jefferson Davis' emissary. Civil War readers will become engrossed in Blackman's able portrait, which summons the zeitgeist of the entire era through one woman's adventurous life.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)