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

Baron de Varnbuler to Mr. Bierwirth

[Translation.]

Stuttgart, May 9, 1865.

Sir: I thank you for your despatches of the 15th and 20th ultimo, in relation to the assassination of the President of the United States, Mr. Abraham Lincoln. This deplorable event has called forth from the people of Würtemberg, as it has done elsewhere, the greatest consternation and sincerest sympathy, and his Majesty the King, himself most painfully affected by the atrocious deed, has, immediately after the receipt of the news thereof, graciously commissioned me to express, for himself and in the name of his government, to the present representative of the United States, Consul Klauprecht, their sincere condolence in the great loss which, in this death, the United States and the entire civilized world have sustained, a commission which I have lost no time to execute.

Requesting you to make the proper use of this communication, I avail myself, &c.,

VARNBULER,

Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Leopold Bierwirth,
Consul General of Wurtemberg.