Confederate Spy Mary Greenhow Lee, Sister of Famed Spy Rose O'Neal Greenhow, Civil War and Postwar Letters 

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Jun 10, 2016 - Jun 11, 2016

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• Lot Description
  Confederate Spy Mary Greenhow Lee, Sister of Famed Spy Rose O'Neal Greenhow, Civil War and Postwar Letters 
  
  Lot of of approx. 22 Civil War-date and postwar items Bessie Johnston Gresham acquired from her friend Mary Greenhow Lee, consisting of unusual Union spy letter denouncing Mary Greenhow Lee; document detailing the search of Mrs. Lee's Winchester home for Contraband; Mrs. Lee's Confederate Pass signed by CSA Colonel Lawson Botts; Union Provost Marshal order refusing a "Safeguard" pass for Mrs. Lee; Fringe remnant 1st Maryland (USA) flag captured by the 1st Maryland (CSA); note of wartime reminiscences from Mary Greenhow Lee; and a few other notes of provenance and more.
  
  Mary Greenhow Lee (1819-1907) was born in Richmond and spent time in Washington DC. She married Hugh Holmes Lee, a lawyer in Winchester, who died before the war in 1856. Her sister, Rose O'Neal Greenhow (1814-1864), was a Washington socialite who dined and conversed with presidents, generals, senators, and high-ranking military officers. She relayed important information to Confederate generals and controlled a pro-Southern spy network with her handler, Thomas Jordan. Jefferson Davis praised Greenhow's pivotal intelligence work and credited the victory of the First Battle of Bull Run to her. She was caught and captured in August of 1861 and put under house arrest. When the government discovered she was still an active spy they imprisoned her and her daughter for five months. She sailed to France and Britain to represent the Confederacy and gain their favor. There, she wrote and published her memoir in London. Her returning ship to America ran aground in 1864 off Wilmington, NC. She drowned when her rowboat overturned during her escape of a Union gunboat. Mary did not suffer the same fate as her sister. She survived the war and, like her sister, participated in espionage. She served the Confederacy as early as 1861.
  
  The highlight of this archive is the rare and unusually ephemeral Union “spy” message denouncing Mary Greenhow Lee that was “dropped” on the road for the approaching Union Army to find. Like General Lee’s famous lost Special Order 191, that was famously found by a Union soldier in a recently vacated Confederate campground and contained information that aided Union General George McClellan to halt Lee’s invasion in the battle of Sharpsburg, the answer to how this message became “dropped” remains a mystery.
  
  When folded, the message is addressed on reverse in pencil, For any Federal soldier who may chance find this-
  
  Apparently, a Unionist citizen of Winchester, VA left a folded note on the road hoping that it would be found by approaching Union troops. In the note, the Unionist denounced Confederate sympathizers in the town (including Mary Greenhow Lee). Instead the note was first found by a Confederate loyalist in Winchester and brought to Mrs. Lee who kept it for years as a “souvenir,” of her experiences during the war along with several other interesting papers.
  
  The message itself is transcribed as follows:
  
  MY FRIENDS, it is the report that your army intend to burn this town of Winchester.
  
  I am an Union man, & must say your feelings are but natural, after this last invasion of the North, -- but my Friends, I drop these lines, to beg you to let the burning be confined, mostly to Market Street -- I know what I am about, when I say the people on that street ARE ALL ENTIRELY & THOROUGHLY SECESSIONIST ONE & ALL & THAT LITTLE WIDOW BY THE NAME OF LEE & HER GANG OF OLD MAIDS, ARE NOTHING MORE, THAN CONFEDERATE SPIES; I know a GREAT DEAL about them, but have not room on paper.
  
  There is a family, by the name Shenard near the Provost Office, who GROSSLY INSULT OUR MEN WHENEVER OUR ARMY is in this place. Joe Denny can tell you about them.
  
  I acknowledge, these I have mentioned I should like to see HUMBLED -- They are the most RAMPANT SOUTHERNERS.
  
  Oh! How they DESPISE & HATE -- the Yankees -- as they call our Federal troops. I have been told a great deal about their sayings and KNOW more of their actions.
  
  Friends one & all who may see this Scrawl --
  FAREWELL! WHIP THE REBS FOR GOD’S SAKES.
  Remember what I have told you for it is all for your own advantage --
  AN UNION FRIEND
  
  Speaking of Market Street -- I forgot to say I meant the part that leads from the Market House over to the St -- that leads to the Bay View Road -- THAT IS THE SECESH PART -- The upper part above the Jail -- has some very good Union friends --
  
  The lot also features a Confederate pass issued to Mary Greenhow Lee on December 28, 1861, signed by Lieutenant Colonel Lawson Botts (1825-1862), General Stonewall Jackson’s Provost Marshal in her hometown and a defense attorney for John Brown in the early stages of the famous trial.
  
  The pass is transcribed as follows:
  
  OFFICE OF PROVOST MARSHAL,
  NO. 5386 WINCHESTER, Dec 28 1861
  PASS MRs Hugh H. Lee & family on all roads at pleasure
  BY ORDER OF MAJ. GEN. T. J. JACKSON,
  Lt. Col. Lawson Botts,
  PROVOST MARSHAL
  
  In 1863, Assistant Provost Marshal Captain McElwain, 110th OH Infantry, Co. D (KIA in the Battle of Fort Wilderness), carefully searched Mary’s house & found no contraband. A small Union Army document handwritten by Captain McElwain, dated April 6, 1863, certifies that he had carefully searched the house and found no contraband. Mary later penciled above his note, SOUTHERN PATRIOTISM VERSUS YANKEE IMPUDENCE. He was standing at that moment over a plank in the floor under which were enough "contrabands" concealed, to have sent me to Fort Warren. The Union soldiers nicknamed her and the women of Winchester "she-devils" because of their attitudes towards Unionists. As a result Union soldiers and officers were not particularly fond of her or her gang of petticoats.
  
  On June 6, 1862, Mary requested a written safe guard. The archive includes a letter in which Assistant Provost Marshall, Captain Henry Bertram, 1st OH Cavalry, Co. C, replied, If Mrs. Hugh Lee desires a written safe guard, Genrl. Banks is the person she will have to apply to. In the mean time one Sentinel will be left at the house to give the required protection. Tensions mounted until February 1865 when General Philip Sheridan banished her from Winchester for constantly snubbing his officers.
  
  Mary moved to Baltimore immediately after the war. She attempted to raise funds for a Confederate soldiers’ home and was a founding member of the Baltimore chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy. She continued to be involved in the local community and advocate for the South. She died in 1907. Before her death; however, she gave many of the items offered here to Bessie Gresham. In a note included in this lot, Gresham wrote, These are odds & ends of letters given me by Mrs. Hugh H. Lee. 2 of them are letters denouncing her to the Yankees. There are also passes &c &c. Her accompanying letter describes them more fully than I at this moment -- just leaving for Europe – can find time to do -- June 12th 1905.
  
  Additional items in the lot owned by Bessie Gresham include: 1p note that reads, Fringe from Flag of First Maryland (Yankee) captured by First Maryland (Confederate) at Front Royal May 23rd ’62. Given me by Mrs. Hugh H. Lee –May 22 1905 with original label & signature of Frank Vizetelly, the former illustrator of the London Ill. News who gave it to her; envelope addressed to Miss Lee and signed at lower left by Frank Vizetelly with two tiny blue fringe threads from the flag; another annotated envelope reading, History of this Confederate Flag given me by Mrs. Laura Lee Davidson Dec 22nd 1907; 4pp ALS to Bessie Gresham from Laura Lee Davidson gifting a flag for her collection of Confederate relics that went with the four [banished] delicate women up the valley in an open wagon...[and] worn by one and another of the party...so passed through the lines under Northern escort (December 21,1907); and old Relic identification card given to Bessie Gresham by Mary Greenhow Lee written with a pen with which the Ordinance of Succession in the State of Louisiana was signed – Came into Mrs. Hugh H. Lee’s possession, through Mrs. Dorsey who gave Beauvoir to President Davis, plus another note from Gresham, Given me by Mrs. Hugh H. Lee – May 22 1905 with original label.
  
  Accompanied by a modern photographic copy, 3.5 x 5 in., of an old photo of Mary Greenhow (Mrs. Hugh H.) Lee; modern photographic copy, 3.5 x 5 in., of Mary’s home in Winchester; Newspaper clipping obituary from the Baltimore Sun, dated Sunday, May 26th, 1907 for Greenhow; and the title, Genteel Rebel: The Life of Mary Greenhow Lee, by Sheila R. Phipps, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004. 259pp.
  
  For a detailed look at the contents of the archive, refer to http://www.historybroker.com/collection/gresham/papers/3greenhow/greenhow.htm.
  
  Bessie E. Johnston Gresham Collection of Confederate Manuscripts, Photographs, & Relics
  
  Lots 89-115
  
  Bessie E. Johnston Gresham was born in Baltimore, MD in 1848 in a home sympathetic to the Southern cause. Union forces imprisoned one of her brothers for aiding the South, and her brother Elliott was a Confederate officer who lost a leg at the battle of Antietam. She became an ardent and unreconstructed Confederate, and, in 1887, she married Thomas Baxter Gresham, a Confederate veteran from Macon, GA. She was actively involved in the Baltimore chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and amassed a notable collection of Confederate manuscripts, photographs, and relics at the Gresham home at 815 Park Avenue in Baltimore. Most of her items were left to the Museum of the Confederacy, the Maryland Historical Society, and other institutions. This important collection of Johnston-Gresham family and Confederate-related material, was passed down through Bessie Johnston Gresham’s step-son, Leroy Gresham, before it was acquired by the consignor.
  
  The collection features over 50 CDVs accumulated by Bessie and Thomas Gresham, offered as Lots 89-100. Some are wardate, and others were apparently acquired in Baltimore soon after the war's end. Some CDVs include patriotic inscriptions and quotations written by Bessie on reverse, which showcase her deep feeling of love and devotion to the Southern Cause.
  
  In a June 1862 letter delivered through the Union blockade, Elliott Johnston, serving as aide-de-camp to CSA General Richard B. Garnett, mentioned collecting photos of CSA generals for his then 14-year-old sister Bessie.
  
  In a 1926 issue of Confederate Veteran magazine, a memorial essay described Bessie's girlhood during the war:
  
  "One of her brothers, who was on General Ewell’s staff, suffered the loss of a leg at the battle of Sharpsburg; her two other brothers were active Southern sympathizers and were under constant surveillance by Federal authorities for giving all possible aid to the Confederacy; her home was a center from which radiated help. “
  
  "Reared in this atmosphere of deep love for our ‘cause,’ she became an ardent and unreconstructed Confederate. "
  
  During her girlhood, Bessie was acquainted with many Southern generals and received from them letters, photographs, and autographs, as well as a number of gifts. 

  Condition

  All in good condition, some toning of the pages and traditional folds. Some of the letters have clipped corners.
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