Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the Second Session Thirty-eighth Congress, Part IV, Appendix to diplomatic correspondence of 1865; the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, late president of the United States of America, and the attempted assassination of William H. Seward, Secretary of State, and Frederick W. Seward, Assistant Secretary, on the evening of the 14th of April, 1865; expressions of condolence and sympathy inspired by these events

Mr. Hagedorn to President Johnson

Consulate of the Grand Duchy of Hesse Darmstadt,
Philadelphia, June 7, 1865.

Sir: I have been directed by his Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Hesse, through his prime minister the Baron von Dalwigk, to express to your excellency the sincere sympathy of his Royal Highness, and of all his faithful subjects, at the assassination of the justly beloved and esteemed Abraham Lincoln, late President of the United States of North America, and the wish and hope that under your excellency’s administration the constitutional authorities may soon be re-established, and that peace and plenty may reign again over the whole of the land.

Enclosed I have the honor to transmit to your excellency a letter of condolence (with a translation attached) addressed to me by the prime minister of Darmstadt, the Baron von Dalwigk, and I avail myself of this opportunity to renew my expression of abhorrence at the unhallowed crime which deprived this country of its first magistrate, and at a moment when friend and foe began to pay their just tribute of admiration to the deceased martyr for the almost accomplished suppression of a rebellion that finds no parallel in the past, and which, it is to be hoped in God, will never be equalled in the future. Allow me to express the hope that under your excellency’s administration this land may again teem with plenty, that its commerce may flourish more than ever and unmolested in all the waters of the world, under the bright stars and stripes under which such glorious deeds have been achieved.

I have the honor to remain your excellency’s most humble servant,

C. F. HAGEDORN,

Consul General of Hesse Darmstadt.

His Excellency Andrew Johnson,
President of the United States of America.