Lady WAS A SPYb y Dr. Chris E. Fonvielle Jr. the YZ D M I R E R S often place pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters on her grave marker to replace the gold coins she lost when she drowned near Fort Fisher. On the day of her burial, October 2, 1864, torrential rain fell until the moment the pallbearers lowered the coffin into the grave. It is reported the sun suddenly “burst forth in the brightest majesty, and a rain-bow of the most vivid color spanned the horizon.” Eliza Jane Lord DeRosset called it a “sad, sad sight.” It may have been DeRosset who selected Rose O’Neale Greenhow’s final resting place, a grassy knoll shaded by “wavering trees” overlook-ing Burnt Mill Creek, for the DeRosset family plot was nearby. Earlier that day, Reverend Dr. James A. Corcoran delivered a “touching tribute to the heroism and patriotic devotion of the deceased” at St. Thomas the Apostle Roman Catholic Church on Dock Street in downtown Wilmington, North Carolina. Afterward, the coffin, still covered with a Confederate flag, was driven in a horse-drawn hearse, followed by Greenhow’s headstone in Oakdale Cemetery, Wilmington. 66 WBM september 2014 “an immense funeral cortege” to Oakdale Cemetery, one-half mile east of the city. The day before, her body laid in state in the chapel of General Hospital No. 4 at Front and Dock streets. Flowers arranged in the shape of crosses, garlands, bouquets, and lighted candles surrounded the bier. It was a solemn affair with “silent mourners, sable-robed, at the head and foot; the tide of visitors, women and children, with streaming eyes, and soldiers, with bent heads and hushed steps, stand-ing by, paying the last tribute of respect to the departed heroine.” Greenhow perished by drowning when the lifeboat carrying her to safety floun-dered. Fort Fisher’s command-ing officer, Colonel William Lamb, telegraphed the news of Greenhow’s death to military authorities in Wilmington. He considered “the dead heroine’s precious body too sacred a charge for a soldier’s camp,” and turned it over to his wife, Sarah Ann Chaffee, endearingly called Daisy, who prepared it at their cottage near Fort Fisher for transferal to Wilmington. It was a tragic ending to a fascinating life, but mirrored the slow death of the Confederacy by late 1864. A IMAGE COURTESY OF NATIONAL ARCHIVES PHOTO BY ALLISON POTTER
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