Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies/Series 2/Volume 3/State Department correspondence/1863/Sept 23 - State Department to A. D. Mann
Department of State,
Richmond, September 23, 1863.
Sir: The President having read the published letter of his Holiness Pope Pius the Ninth, inviting the Catholic clergy of New Orleans and New York to use all their efforts for the restoration of peace in our country, has deemed proper to convey to his Holiness by letter his own thanks and those of our people for the Christian charity and sympathy displayed in the letter of his Holiness as published, and of which you will find a copy annexed.
The President therefore directs that you proceed in person to Rome and there deliver to his Holiness the President's letter herein enclosed, and of which a copy is also enclosed for your own information, and you will receive herewith a special commission appointing you as envoy for the purpose above expressed.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
J. P. Benjamin,
Hon. A. Dudley Mann, etc., Brussels.
[Enclosures.]
Executive Office,
Richmond, September 23, 1863.
Most Venerable Chief of the Holy See and Sovereign Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.
The letters which your Holiness addressed to the venerable chiefs of the Catholic clergy in New Orleans and New York have been brought to my attention, and I have read with emotion the terms in which you are pleased to express the deep sorrow with which you regard the slaughter, ruin, and devastation consequent on the war now waged by the Government of the United States against the States and people over which I have been chosen to preside, and in which you direct them, and the clergy under their authority, to exhort the people and the rulers to the exercise of mutual charity and the love of peace. I as deeply sensible of the Christian charity and sympathy with which your Holiness has twice appealed to the venerable clergy of your church, urging them to use and apply all study and exertion for the restoration of peace and tranquillity.
I therefore deem it my duty to offer to your Holiness in my own name and in that of the people of the Confederate States the expression of our sincere and cordial appreciation of the Christian charity and love by which your Holiness is actuated, and to assure you that this people at whose hearthstones the enemy is now pressing with threats of dire oppression and merciless carnage are now and ever have been earnestly desirous that this wicked war shall cease; that we have offered at the footstool of Our Father who is in heaven prayers inspired by the same feeling which animated your Holiness; that we desire no evil to our enemies, nor do we covet any of their possessions; but are only struggling to the end that they shall cease to devastate our land and inflict useless and cruel slaughter upon our people; and that we be permitted to live at peace with all mankind under our own laws and institutions, which protect every man in the enjoyment not only of his temporal rights but of the freedom of worshiping God according to his own faith.
I therefore pray your Holiness to accept from me and from the people of these Confederate States this assurance of our sincere thanks for your effort to aid the cause of peace, and of our earnest wishes that your life may be prolonged and that God may have you in His holy keeping.
Jefferson Davis,