Illustrious and Hon. JEFFERSON DAVIS
President of the Confederate States of America, Richmond.
Illustrious and honorable sir, greeting:
We have lately received with all kindness, as was meet, the gentlemen sent by your Excellency to present to us your letter dated on the 23d of last September. We have received certainly no small pleasure in learning both from these gentlemen and from your letter the feelings of gratification and of very warm appreciation with which you, illustrious and honorable sir, were moved when you first had knowledge written in October of the preceding year to the venerable brethren, John, archbishop of New York, and John, archbishop of New Orleans, in which we again and again urged and exhorted those venerable brethren that because of their exemplary piety and episcopal zeal they should employ their most earnest efforts, in our name also, in order that the fatal civil war which had arisen in the States should end, and that the people of America might again enjoy mutual peace and concord, and love each other with mutual charity. And it has been very gratifying to us to recognize illustrious and honorable sir, that you and your people are animated by the same desire for peace and tranquillity, which we had so earnestly inculcated in our aforesaid letters to the venerable brethren above named. Oh, that the other people also of the States and their rulers, considering seriously how cruel and how deplorable is this internecine war, would receive and embrace the counsels of peace and tranquillity. We indeed shall not cease with most fervent prayer to beseech God, the best and highest, and to implore Him to pour out the spirit of Christian love and peace upon all the people of America, and to rescue them from the great calamities with which they are afflicted. And we also pray the same most merciful Lord that he will illumine your Excellency with the light of His divine grace and unite you with ourselves in perfect charity. Given at Rome at St. Peters on the 3d December, 1863, in the eighteenth year of our pontificate.
PIUS P. P. IX.
...Looks like more than one side participated!
no exchange of envoy
Reposing special trust and confidence in your prudence, integrity, and ability, I do appoint you, the said A. Dudley Mann, special envoy of the Confederate States of America to the Holy See and to deliver to its most venerable chief, Pope Pius IX, sovereign pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, a communication which I have addressed to his holiness under date of the 23d of this month. Given under my hand and the seal of the Confederate States of America, at the city of Richmond, this 24th day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three. By the President:
JEFFERSON DAVIS
...looks like an envoy was clearly appointed...
"On the 19th I had a second interview with Cardinal Antonelli. I intended it to be of short duration, but he became so much interested in the communications which I made to him that he prolonged it for nearly an hour. He took the occasion to inform me, at the commencement, that the acting representative of the United States had obtained an interview of him the day before to remonstrate against the facilities afforded by the government of the holy see to "Rebels" for entering and abiding in Rome; and that he, the cardinal, promptly replied that he intended to take such "Rebels" under his special protection, because it would be making exactions upon elevated humanity which it was incapable of conscientiously complying with, to expect them to take an oath of allegiance to a country which they bitterly detested." - Mann to JP Benjamin, Nov 21, 1863
...and it also looks like that envoy was openly and actively recieved by the Vatican.
no official recognition.
Messrs. A. DUDLEY MANN, J. M. MASON, JOHN SLIDELL Commissioners of the Confederate States of America,
HONORABLE GENTLEMEN: Your colleague, Mr. Soutter, has handed me your letter of 11th November, with which, in conformity with the instructions of your Government, you have sent me a copy of the manifesto issued by the Congress of the Confederate States and approved by the most honorable President, in order that the attention of the government of the Holy See, to whom, as well as to the other Governments, you have addressed yourselves, might be called to it. The sentiments expressed in the manifesto tending, as they do, to the cessation of the most bloody war which still rages in your countries and the putting an end to the disasters which accompany it by proceeding to negotiations for peace, being entirely in accordance with the disposition and character of the august head of the Catholic Church, I did not hesitate a moment in bringing it to the notice of the Holy Father. - Message of Cardinal Antonelli, Dec. 2, 1864
..."your Government," "Congress of the Confederate State," "your countries" - looks like a clear diplomatic exchange of recognition. Deal with it.