In the late summer of 1888, officials at the U.S. Department of State appointed John Henry Haynes of Rowe, Massachusetts, to become the first U.S. consul in Baghdad. At that time, Baghdad--along with all of present day Iraq--was part of the Ottoman Empire, as it had been for more than three centuries. In his fourth dispatch, a single-page, hand-written message presented here, Haynes announced that he had safely arrived in Baghdad. This article briefly relates the story of the creation of the Baghdad consulate, describes the work done by the early consuls, and provides teaching selections related to Haynes' fourth dispatch.