The Man Without a Country | Page 4

in Mackinaw, waiting for a Lake Superior steamer which did not
choose to come, and I was devouring to the very stubble all the current
literature I could get hold of, even down to the deaths and marriages in
the "Herald." My memory for names and people is good, and the reader
will see, as he goes on, that I had reason enough to remember Philip
Nolan. There are hundreds of readers who would have paused at that
announcement, if the officer of the "Levant" who reported it had
chosen to make it thus: "Died, May 11, THE MAN WITHOUT A
COUNTRY." For it was as "The Man without a Country" that poor
Philip Nolan had generally been known by the officers who had him in
charge during some fifty years, as, indeed, by all the men who sailed
under them. I dare say there is many a man who has taken wine with
him once a fortnight, in a three years' cruise, who never knew that his
name was "Nolan," or whether the poor wretch had any name at all.
There can now be no possible harm in telling this poor creature's story.
Reason enough there has been till now, ever since Madison's [Note 4]
administration went out in 1817, for very strict secrecy, the secrecy of
honor itself, among the gentlemen of the navy who have had Nolan in
successive charge. And certainly it speaks well for the esprit de corps
of the profession, and the personal honor of its members, that to the
press this man's story has been wholly unknown,--and, I think, to the
country at large also. I have reason to think, from some investigations I
made in the Naval Archives when I was attached to the Bureau of
Construction, that every official report relating to him was burned
when Ross burned the public buildings at Washington. One of the
Tuckers, or possibly one of the Watsons, had Nolan in charge at the end
of the war; and when, on returning from his cruise, he reported at
Washington to one of the Crowninshields,--who was in the Navy
Department when he came home,--he found that the Department
ignored the whole business. Whether they really knew nothing about it,
or whether it was a "Non mi ricordo," determined on as a piece of
policy, I do not know. But this I do know, that since 1817, and possibly

before, no naval officer has mentioned Nolan in his report of a cruise.
But, as I say, there is no need for secrecy any longer. And now the poor
creature is dead, it seems to me worth while to tell a little of his story,
by way of showing young Americans of to-day what it is to be A MAN
WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
PHILIP NOLAN was as fine a young officer as there was in the
"Legion of the West," as the Western division of our army was then
called. When Aaron Burr [Note 5] made his first dashing expedition
down to New Orleans in 1805, at Fort Massac, or somewhere above on
the river, he met, as the Devil would have it, this gay, dashing, bright
young fellow; at some dinner-party, I think. Burr marked him, talked to
him, walked with him, took him a day or two's voyage in his flat-boat,
and, in short, fascinated him. For the next year, barrack-life was very
tame to poor Nolan. He occasionally availed himself of the permission
the great man had given him to write to him. Long, high-worded, stilted
letters the poor boy wrote and rewrote and copied. But never a line did
he have in reply from the gay deceiver. The other boys in the garrison
sneered at him, because he lost the fun which they found in shooting or
rowing while he was working away on these grand letters to his grand
friend. They could not understand why Nolan kept by himself while
they were playing high-low jack. Poker was not yet invented. But
before long the young fellow had his revenge. For this time His
Excellency, Honorable Aaron Burr, appeared again under a very
different aspect. There were rumors that he had an army behind him
and everybody supposed that he had an empire before him. At that time
the youngsters all envied him. Burr had not been talking twenty
minutes with the commander before he asked him to send for
Lieutenant Nolan. Then after a little talk he asked Nolan if he could
show him something of the great river and the plans for the new post.
He asked Nolan to take him out in his skiff to show him a canebrake or
a cotton-wood tree, as he said,--really to seduce him; and by the time
the sail was over, Nolan was enlisted body and soul.