Giesen, C.SS.R., Father Henry, Vicksburgh, Mississippi, to Archbishop John Mary Odin, C.M, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1867 February 6

He writes to put Odin on his guard against a Father Murphy who was taken from a boat last night, drunk and brandishing a bowie knife. Father Leray knows him well. Before the war he went annually collecting along the river among the levee workers. For three months he has not read his breviary or said or heard Mass. With his collections he bought two farms in Indiana and as he did not attend to his parish the Bishop of Vincennes drove him out of his diocese. During the war he became a chaplain and he is now living in the diocese of Chicago. Now he is collecting again in Vicksburgh and on the Louisiana levees without any authorization. He has said he would also go to New Orleans. Leray says some one has begun again to scandalise the levee workers. McGill has been there too and an Irishman told them he had given him $12. Should such individual not be denounced in the public press? The mission here is going very well; there are already 8 converts. :: VI-2-m A.L.S. French 2pp. 12mo.