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The Charles P. McIlvaine letters were written in the 18th and 19th century and therefore may contain language that we understand today as harmful or offensive. You may encounter paternalist descriptions of Native Americans, racial slurs, or sexism. For more information, see our policy page.
Description
Letter on printed circular addressed to members of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Diocese of Louisiana. Circular is a plea on part of Bacon to return to Church of United States - to leave Bishop Polk. Letter states his position in Louisiana - asks guidance and counsel from McIlvaine. In post script, indicates he is not the clergyman under suspension who officiated in St. Pauls's.
Date
1-28-1863
Keywords
letter, McIlvaine, Bacon, Diocese of Louisiana
Recommended Citation
Bacon, Thomas, "Letter to Charles Pettit McIlvaine" (1863). Charles Pettit McIlvaine Letters. 332.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/mcilvaine_letters/332
Rights Statement
Transcript
[first page]
New Orleans, Jan. 28th 1863
Rt. Rev Father:
May I beg you to read this circular as a matter of general concern to the Church in these times. I seem to have been called by God’s Providence to duty therein indicated, and I enter upon it very sensibly. I am perhaps the only clergyman in the “seceded” dioceses, who, while remaining in the South after the war began, and having his home still there, never complied in any manner with the unlawful charges in the Church service and government. For this I was virtually silenced for more than a year, resigning my old parish at [Natchitoches], and really, in effect, forbidden to exercise the sacred office which is my duty and my greatest pleasure. I suffer now greatly, not only in fortune but still more in separation from my wife (now in the Red River country) to whom I have not been able to communicate a word for eight months, to hear from her.
I foresee much that’s very trying and painful in my present duty, and therefore I beg your prayers sympathy and counsel in this new and unprecedented condition of affairs.
Your son & servant in Ehrns’t,
Thomas Scott Bacon
P.S. Of course I am not the clergyman of whom so much was said of his officiality in St. Parl’s Ch. while under suspicion of Bp. Polk. He, (Rev. D. E. Barr.) it seems had been a [?] restored by Bp. P., but he is no longer officiating in the city but as a chaplain in the army. B.