Elder, William Henry, Bishop of Natchez, Mississippi, to Archbishop John Mary Odin, C.M., New Orleans, Louisiana, 1862 March 12

The irregularity of the mails is causing much inconvenience. Elder wrote to Father Julian M. Guillou on February 20 proposing to him to go as chaplain according to Odin's previous letter. When Odin's telegram reached him, he telegraphed that, if he consented, he should join Colonel Augustin's Regiment immediately. Odin's dispatch did not mention sending the chaplain to New Orleans and he understood he was to join the Regiment in Tennessee or on the road. He has not yet received an answer. He suspects Guillou is absent on a mission and will not reach home until the middle of next week. The Regiment will hardly go into battle before some weeks of camp discipline and drilling. He asks Odin's advice in a question of conscience. The law for imposing the war tax says the assessment of value shall be made according to the value of the property held January 1, 1861. A Catholic property holder tells him that in practice this is disregarded. His property is partly in real estate and partly in promissory notes and other paper. Elder's opinion was that paper obligations having no intrinsic value, the law could not justly require a man to estimate it according to its previous worth. Otherwise, if a bank had broken since January 1861, a man could be taxed for his worthless notes. As for the other property he is inclined to think that the general practice of others, openly avowed and known to the officers, might authorize an individual to do what is commonly done. Otherwise, he would be compelled to bear a double share of the common burthen. He asks Odin to let him know his opinion and that of his theologians. He would rather that Odin did not mention the quarter from which the question comes. :: VI-2-f A.L.S. 3pp. 4to.