OCTOBER 1st, 1864: The USS Niphon, Acting Master Kemble, ran British blockade-runner Condor aground off New Inlet, North Carolina. Niphon was prevented from destroying the steamer by intense fire from Fort Fisher.
Among the passengers on board was Mrs. Rose O'Neal Greenhow, one of the most famous Confederate spies of the war. Mrs. Greenhow, fearful of being captured on the grounded steamer with her important dispatches, set out by boat for the shore, but the craft overturned in the heavy surf.
The crew managed to get ashore, but the woman, weighted down by $2,000 in British gold in a pouch around her neck, drowned. She was buried at Wilmington.
A Very Famous Passenger. --Old B-R'er
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