The Man Without a Country and Other Tales

The Man Without a Country and
Other Tales

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man Without a Country and
Other Tales
by Edward E. Hale This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no
cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give
it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Man Without a Country and Other Tales
Author: Edward E. Hale
Release Date: May 20, 2005 [EBook #15868]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN
WITHOUT A COUNTRY ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Josephine Paolucci, Joshua Hutchinson
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

THE
MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY
AND
OTHER TALES.
BY
EDWARD E. HALE,

AUTHOR OF "IN HIS NAME," "TEN TIMES ONE IS TEN," "HOW
TO DO IT," "WHAT CAREER," ETC., ETC.
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1891.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by
TICKNOR AND FIELDS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.

CONTENTS.
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY
THE LAST OF THE FLORIDA
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR
THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE
THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC
THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET
CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON

THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
FROM THE INGHAM PAPERS.
This story was written in the summer of 1863, as a contribution,
however humble, towards the formation of a just and true national
sentiment, or sentiment of love to the nation. It was at the time when
Mr. Vallandigham had been sent across the border. It was my wish,
indeed, that the story might be printed before the autumn elections of
that year,--as my "testimony" regarding the principles involved in
them,--but circumstances delayed its publication till the December
number of the Atlantic appeared.
It is wholly a fiction, "founded on fact." The facts on which it is
founded are these,--that Aaron Burr sailed down the Mississippi River
in 1805, again in 1806, and was tried for treason in 1807. The rest, with

one exception to be noticed, is all fictitious.
It was my intention that the story should have been published with no
author's name, other than that of Captain Frederic Ingham, U.S.N.
Whether writing under his name or my own, I have taken no liberties
with history other than such as every writer of fiction is privileged to
take,--indeed, must take, if fiction is to be written at all.
The story having been once published, it passed out of my hands. From
that moment it has gradually acquired different accessories, for which I
am not responsible. Thus I have heard it said, that at one bureau of the
Navy Department they say that Nolan was pardoned, in fact, and
returned home to die. At another bureau, I am told, the answer to
questions is, that, though it is true that an officer was kept abroad all his
life, his name was not Nolan. A venerable friend of mine in Boston,
who discredits all tradition, still recollects this "Nolan court-martial."
One of the most accurate of my younger friends had noticed Nolan's
death in the newspaper, but recollected "that it was in September, and
not in August." A lady in Baltimore writes me, I believe in good faith,
that Nolan has two widowed sisters residing in that neighborhood. A
correspondent of the Philadelphia Despatch believed "the article untrue,
as the United States corvette 'Levant' was lost at sea nearly three years
since, between San Francisco and San Juan." I may remark that this
uncertainty as to the place of her loss rather adds to the probability of
her turning up after three years in Lat. 2° 11' S., Long. 131° W. A
writer in the New Orleans Picayune, in a careful historical paper,
explained at length that I had been mistaken all through; that Philip
Nolan never went to sea, but to Texas; that there he was shot in battle,
March 21, 1801, and by orders from Spain every fifth man of his party
was to be shot, had they not died in prison. Fortunately, however, he
left his papers and maps, which fell into the hands of a friend of the
Picayune's correspondent. This friend proposes to publish them,--and
the public will then have, it is to be hoped, the true history of Philip
Nolan, the man without a country.
With all these continuations, however, I have nothing to do. I can only
repeat that my Philip Nolan is pure fiction. I cannot send his
scrap-book to my friend who asks for it, because