Archives, Catholic Diocese of Charleston South Carolina

Bishop Lynch

A Confederate Bishop

Appointment as Special Commissioner of the C.S.A., Jefferson Davis

Manuscript, 04 April 1864

Full Pardon and Amnesty, Andrew Johnson

Manuscript, 29 May 1865

In 1864 President Jefferson Davis appointed Bishop Patrick Neison Lynch of Charleston, South Carolina, to be Commissioner of the Confederate States of America to the States of the Church.  An ardent Confederate, Bishop Lynch undertook a mission to Europe to win recognition by the Holy See.  When Fort Sumter fell to the Confederates Lynch ordered a Te Deum sung in his Cathedral and championed Southern independence in a public exchange of letters with Arch bishop John Hughes of New York.  Jefferson Davis admired Lynch for his work with sick and wounded servicemen and prisoners of war, and the Bishop was a member of the President's entourage during Davis’ 1863 visit to Charleston. In an appeal to his faithful for prayers for peace Lynch praised the Confederate government and armies.

Lynch accepted appointment on March 3, 1864; on April 4 Secretary of State Judah R Benjamin instructed the Bishop to seek recognition and, more importantly, to work for "enlightening opinions and molding impressions" of European leaders.  Soon after the Bishop ran the federal blockade and sailed to Europe.  In Paris he met with Confederate agents and propagandists, and on June 14 Emperor Napoleon III gave Lynch an audience.     In Rome, he communicated the Confederacy's desire for recognition.  On July 4 Pope Pius IX received Lynch in private audience as Charleston's ordinary, but not as Confederate representative. Pius said of North and South, "It is clear that you are two nations," expressed willingness to mediate and opposition to sudden emancipation. "But still," remarked the Pontiff, "something might be done looking to an improvement in [the slaves'] position or state, and to a gradual preparation for their freedom at a future opportune time."

As part of his contribution to the Southern cause he wrote a tract on slavery, A Few Words on the Domestic Slavery in the Confederate States of America by a Catholic Clergyman.  He published in Italy, France, and the German Rhineland - all Catholic countries. He asserted that Catholicism must play an essential role in the education and salvation of African Americans, especially if they were granted freedom. After the war the Bishop wanted to establish a model community for freedmen on an island off the South Carolina coast and tried to recruit missionary societies to work among black people in his diocese.  This pamphlet documents a transition from defense of slavery to an apostolate to Negroes in the Diocese of Charleston. Although many of his views were shared by his brother bishops, Lynch went further than they in some of his characterizations of African Americans and he, alone among them, held high office in the Confederate government.

The brochure came too late in the war to make any significant impact on the outcome. Lynch was shocked by the speed of the Confederate collapse, and many copies of the German and French editions went unsold.  With its publication, the Bishop apparently felt that he had done all he could for his country and wanted to return home.  On Christmas Eve, 1864, he wrote Cardinal Barnabe that he had sent his resignation to Richmond effective February, 1865, and hoped to sail for America around January 20.  As things turned out he was not to see Charleston for another year, after the Confederate debacle and a pardon from President Andrew Johnson.

Excerpt from:  Heisser, David C. R. “Bishop Lynch’s Civil War Pamphlet on Slavery.”   Catholic Historical Review 8 No. 4 (1998): 681-96.