08/23/2024
On August 23rd in the Civil War.This day in the Civil War. (A Southern legend is finally caught.)
(Video-Rose O'Neal Greenhow- A Confederate Spy)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kzk2-fbGsnw
(Video-The Southern Sympathizer Who Shuttled Secret Ciphers to the South)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gwwltaXiKg
August 23, 1861-Allan Pinkerton, head of the new secret service agency of the Federal government, places Confederate spy Rose O’Neal Greenhow under house arrest in Washington, D.C.
Greenhow was a wealthy, vivacious, widow living in Washington at the outbreak of the war. She was well connected in the capital and was especially close with Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson. The Maryland native was openly committed to the Southern cause, and she soon formed a substantial spy network.
Greenhow’s operation quickly paid dividends for the Confederacy. One of her operatives provided key information to Confederate General Pierre G. T. Beauregard concerning the deployment of Union General Irwin McDowell’s troops before the First Battle of Bull Run, Virginia, in July 1861. Beauregard later testified that this dispatch, along with further information provided by Greenhow herself, was instrumental in Beauregard’s decision to request additional troops. The move led to a decisive victory by the Rebels.
It did not take the Federals long to track down the leaks in Washington. Pinkerton placed Greenhow under house arrest, and he soon confined other suspected women in her home. However, Greenhow was undeterred. She was allowed visitors, including Senator Wilson, and was able to continue funneling information to the Confederates. Frustrated, Pinkerton finally confined Greenhow and her daughter to the Old Capitol Prison for five months in early 1862. In June 1862, she and her daughter, “Little Rose,” were released and exiled to the South.
Greenhow traveled to England and France to drum up support for the Southern cause, and she penned her memoirs while abroad. She was on her way back to America in September 1864 when a Yankee war vessel ran her ship aground in North Carolina. Weighted down by a substantial amount of gold, (rumor has it there was close to $25,000.00 in gold in the money belt she had around her waist) Greenhow’s lifeboat overturned and she drowned.
August 23, 1862-SECOND BATTLE OF NEW ULM, MINN.
After creating a diversion in the direction of Fort Ridgely, approximately 650 Sioux Indians led by Wabasha, Mankato and Big Eagle, attacked the town of New Ulm, Minnesota, from the west around 9:30 a.m. As the Indians advanced, some of the defenders fell back, abandoning buildings that the Indians either occupied or set on fire. The Indian advance swept forward, wrapping around both flanks of the town. Just as the Indians were about to charge, the town’s defenders led by Charles Flandrau, led a counterattack, which robbed the Sioux of their initiative. Fighting continued to nightfall, before the attack was over. Ninety-four civilian casualties occurred during the two attacks at New Ulm, with more than one-third of them fatal. There were 190 buildings in the town that were destroyed by fire. Again, Charles Ingalls escaped death in the fight.
August 23, 1863-The first period of bombardment on Fort Sumter came to an end but only after 5,009 rounds had been fired by the Federals and only one gun left in good condition in the fort, which was now a pile of rubble and wreckage.
Confederates captured two small Federal gunboats, the Satellite and Reliance, at the mouth of the Rappahannock River in Virginia. Lieutenant L. Taylor Wood accomplished the feat with four small boats with sixty men and thirty sharpshooters.
August 23, 1864-After fierce bombardment by land batteries, three monitors and other Union naval vessels, Fort Morgan, the last major Confederate post at the entrance to Mobile Bay, fell to the Federals. It gave them control of the port, even though the Confederates held the city itself. Now Wilmington, North Carolina remained the only significant port partially open to Confederate blockade-runners.
