Thomas Birch, Capture of H.M. Ships Cyane & Levant, by the U.S. Frigate Constitution, 1915
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 truenational sentiment, or sentiment of love to the nation. It wasat the time when Mr. Vallandigham had been sent across theborder. It was my wish, indeed, that the story might be printedbefore the autumn elections of that year,—as my "testimony"regarding the principles involved in them,—but circumstancesdelayed its publication till the December number of the Atlanticappeared.
It is wholly a fiction, "founded on fact." The facts on whichit is founded are these,—that Aaron Burr sailed down the MississippiRiver in 1805, again in 1806, and was tried for treason in1807. The rest, with one exception to be noticed, is all fictitious.
It was my intention that the story should have been publishedwith no author's name, other than that of Captain Frederic Ingham,U.S.N. Whether writing under his name or my own, Ihave taken no liberties with history other than such as everywriter of fiction is privileged to take,—indeed, must take, if fictionis to be written at all.
The story having been once published, it passed out of myhands. From that moment it has gradually acquired differentaccessories, for which I am not responsible. Thus I have heard itsaid, that at one bureau of the Navy Department they say thatNolan was pardoned, in fact, and returned home to die. At anotherbureau, I am told, the answer to questions is, that, thoughit is true that an officer was kept abroad all his life, his name wasnot Nolan. A venerable friend of mine in Boston, who discreditsall tradition, still recollects this "Nolan court-martial." One ofthe most accurate of my younger friends had noticed Nolan'sdeath in the newspaper, but recollected "that it was in September,and not in August." A lady in Baltimore writes me, I believein good faith, that Nolan has two widowed sisters residingin that neighborhood. A correspondent of the PhiladelphiaDespatch believed "the article untrue, as the United States corvette'Levant' was lost at sea nearly three years since, betweenSan Francisco and San Juan." I may remark that this uncertaintyas to the place of her loss rather adds to the probabilityof her turning up after three years in Lat. 2° 11' S., Long. 131°W. A writer in the New Orleans Picayune, in a careful historicalpaper, explained at length that I had been mistaken allthrough; that Philip Nolan never went to sea, but to Texas;that there he was shot in battle, March 21, 1801, and by ordersfrom Spain every fifth man of his party was to be shot, had theynot died in prison. Fortunately, however, he left his papers andmaps, which fell into the hands of a friend of the Picayune'scorrespondent. This friend proposes to publish them,—and thepublic will then have, it is to be hoped, the true history of PhilipNolan, 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 cannotsend his scrap-book to my friend who asks for it, because I haveit not to send.
I remembered, when I was collecting material for my story, thatin General Wilkinson's galimatias, which he calls his "Memoirs,"is frequent reference to a business partner of his, of the nameof Nolan, who, in the very beginning of this century, waskilled in Texas. Whenever Wilkinson found himself in rathera deeper bog than usual, he used to justify himself by sayingthat he could not explain such or such a charge because"the papers referring to it were lost when Mr. Nolan was imprisonedin Texas." Finding this mythical character in themythical legends of a mythical time, I took the liberty to givehim a cousin, rather more mythical, whose adventures should beon the seas. I had the impression that Wilkinson's friend wasnamed Stephen,—and as such I spoke of him in the earlyeditions of this story. But long after this was printed, I foundthat the New Orleans paper was right in saying that the Texanhero was named Philip Nolan.
If I had forgotten him and his name, I can only say that Mr.Jefferson, who did not forget him, abandoned him and his,—whenthe Spanish Government murdered him and imprisoned hisassociates for life. I have done my best to repair my fault, andto recall to memory a brave man, by telling the story of his fate,in a book called "Philip Nolan's Friends." To the historicalstatements in that book the reader is referred. That the TexanPhilip Nolan played an important, though forgotten, part in ournational history, the reader will understand,—when I say thatthe terror of the Spanish Government, excited by his adventures,governed all their policy regarding Texas and Louisiana also,till the last territory was no longer their own.
If any reader considers the invention of a cousin too great aliberty to take in fiction, I venture to remind him that "'Tissixty years since"; and that I should have the highest authorityin literature even for much greater liberties taken with annals sofar removed from our time.
A Boston paper, in noticing the story of "My Double," containedin another part of this collection, said it was highly improbable.I have always agreed with that critic. I confess Ihave the same opinion of this story of Philip Nolan. It passes onships which had no existence, is vouched for by officers who neverlived. Its hero is in two or three places at the same time, undera process wholly impossible under any conceivable administrationof affairs. When my friend, Mr. W.H. Reed, sent mefrom City Point, in Virginia, the record of the death of PHILIPNOLAN, a negro from Louisiana, who died in the cause of hiscountry in service in a colored regiment, I felt that he haddone something to atone for the imagined guilt of the imaginednamesake of his unfortunate god-father.
E.E.H.
ROXBURY, MASS., March 20, 1886.
"NOLAN. Died, on board U.S. Corvette Levant, Lat. 2° 11' S.,Long. 131° W., on the 11th of May, PHILIP NOLAN."
I happened to observe it, because I was stranded atthe old Mission-House in Mackinaw, waiting for aLake Superior steamer which did not choose to come,and I was devouring to the very stubble all the currentliterature I could get hold of, even down to thedeaths and marriages in the Herald. My memory fornames and people is good, and the reader will see, ashe goes on, that I had reason enough to rememberPhilip Nolan. There are hundreds of readers whowould have paused at that announcement, if the officerof the Levant who reported it had chosen to make itthus:—"Died, May 11th, THE MAN WITHOUT ACOUNTRY." For it was as "The Man without aCountry" that poor Philip Nolan had generally beenknown by the officers who had him in charge duringsome fifty years, as, indeed, by all the men who sailedunder them. I dare say there is many a man who hastaken 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 thispoor creature's story. Reason enough there has beentill now, ever since Madison's administration went outin 1817, for very strict secrecy, the secrecy of honoritself, among the gentlemen of the navy who have hadNolan in successive charge. And certainly it speakswell for the esprit de corps of the profession, and thepersonal honor of its members, that to the press thisman'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 Archiveswhen I was attached to the Bureau of Construction,that every official report relating to him was burnedwhen 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 Washingtonto one of the Crowninshields,—who was in theNavy Department when he came home,—he foundthat the Department ignored the whole business.Whether they really knew nothing about it or whetherit was a "Non mi ricordo," determined on as a pieceof policy, I do not know. But this I do know, thatsince 1817, and possibly before, no naval officer hasmentioned Nolan in his report of a cruise.
But, as I say, there is no need for secrecy anylonger. And now the poor creature is dead, it seemsto me worth while to tell a little of his story, by wayof showing young Americans of to-day what it is to beA Man Without a Country.
* * * * *
Philip Nolan was as fine a young officer as therewas in the "Legion of the West," as the Westerndivision of our army was then called. When AaronBurr made his first dashing expedition down to NewOrleans in 1805, at Fort Massac, or somewhereabove on the river, he met, as the Devil would haveit, 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 inhis flat-boat, and, in short, fascinated him. For thenext year, barrack-life was very tame to poor Nolan.He occasionally availed himself of the permission thegreat man had given him to write to him. Long, high-worded,stilted letters the poor boy wrote and rewroteand copied. But never a line did he have in reply fromthe gay deceiver. The other boys in the garrisonsneered at him, because he sacrificed in this unrequitedaffection for a politician the time which they devoted toMonongahela, hazard, and high-low-jack. Bourbon,euchre, and poker were still unknown. But one dayNolan had his revenge. This time Burr came down theriver, not as an attorney seeking a place for his office,but as a disguised conqueror. He had defeated I knownot how many district-attorneys; he had dined at Iknow not how many public dinners; he had been heraldedin I know not how many Weekly Arguses, andit was rumored that he had an army behind him and anempire before him. It was a great day—his arrival—topoor Nolan. Burr had not been at the fort an hourbefore he sent for him. That evening he asked Nolanto take him out in his skiff, to show him a canebrakeor a cotton-wood tree, as he said,—really to seducehim; and by the time the sail was over, Nolan was enlistedbody and soul. From that time, though he did notyet know it, he lived as A Man Without a Country.
What Burr meant to do I know no more than you,dear reader. It is none of our business just now. Only,when the grand catastrophe came, and Jefferson andthe House of Virginia of that day undertook to breakon the wheel all the possible Clarences of the thenHouse of York, by the great treason-trial at Richmond,some of the lesser fry in that distant Mississippi Valley,which was farther from us than Puget's Sound isto-day, introduced the like novelty on their provincialstage, and, to while away the monotony of the summerat Fort Adams, got up, for spectacles, a string of court-martialson the officers there. One and another ofthe colonels and majors were tried, and, to fill out thelist, little Nolan, against whom, Heaven knows, therewas evidence enough,—that he was sick of the service,had been willing to be false to it, and wouldhave obeyed any order to march any-whither withany one who would follow him had the order beensigned, "By command of His Exc. A. Burr." Thecourts dragged on. The big flies escaped,—rightlyfor all I know. Nolan was proved guilty enough, as Isay; yet you and I would never have heard of him,reader, but that, when the president of the courtasked him at the close, whether he wished to say anythingto show that he had always been faithful to theUnited States, he cried out, in a fit of frenzy,—
"D——n the United States! I wish I may neverhear of the United States again!"
I suppose he did not know how the words shockedold Colonel Morgan, who was holding the court.Half the officers who sat in it had served through theRevolution, and their lives, not to say their necks, hadbeen risked for the very idea which he so cavalierlycursed in his madness. He, on his part, had grownup in the West of those days, in the midst of "Spanishplot," "Orleans plot," and all the rest. He had beeneducated on a plantation where the finest companywas a Spanish officer or a French merchant from Orleans.His education, such as it was, had been perfectedin commercial expeditions to Vera Cruz, and Ithink he told me his father once hired an Englishmanto be a private tutor for a winter on the plantation.He had spent half his youth with an older brother,hunting horses in Texas; and, in a word, to him"United States" was scarcely a reality. Yet he hadbeen fed by "United States" for all the years sincehe had been in the army. He had sworn on his faithas a Christian to be true to "United States." It was"United States" which gave him the uniform hewore, and the sword by his side. Nay, my poor Nolan,it was only because "United States" had pickedyou out first as one of her own confidential men ofhonor that "A. Burr" cared for you a straw morethan for the flat-boat men who sailed his ark for him.I do not excuse Nolan; I only explain to the readerwhy he damned his country, and wished he mightnever hear her name again.
He never did hear her name but once again. Fromthat moment, September 23, 1807, till the day hedied, May 11, 1863, he never heard her name again.For that half-century and more he was a man withouta country.
Old Morgan, as I said, was terribly shocked. IfNolan had compared George Washington to BenedictArnold, or had cried, "God save King George,"Morgan would not have felt worse. He called thecourt into his private room, and returned in fifteenminutes, with a face like a sheet, to say,—
"Prisoner, hear the sentence of the Court! TheCourt decides, subject to the approval of the President,that you never hear the name of the UnitedStates again."
Nolan laughed. But nobody else laughed. OldMorgan was too solemn, and the whole room washushed dead as night for a minute. Even Nolan losthis swagger in a moment. Then Morgan added,—
"Mr. Marshal, take the prisoner to Orleans in anarmed boat, and deliver him to the naval commanderthere."
The Marshal gave his orders and the prisoner wastaken out of court.
"Mr. Marshal," continued old Morgan, "see thatno one mentions the United States to the prisoner.Mr. Marshal, make my respects to Lieutenant Mitchellat Orleans, and request him to order that no oneshall mention the United States to the prisoner whilehe is on board ship. You will receive your writtenorders from the officer on duty here this evening.The court is adjourned without day."
I have always supposed that Colonel Morgan himselftook the proceedings of the court to WashingtonCity, and explained them to Mr. Jefferson. Certainit is that the President approved them,—certain,that is, if I may believe the men who say they haveseen his signature. Before the Nautilus got roundfrom New Orleans to the Northern Atlantic coastwith the prisoner on board the sentence had been approved,and he was a man without a country.
The plan then adopted was substantially the samewhich was necessarily followed ever after. Perhapsit was suggested by the necessity of sending him bywater from Fort Adams and Orleans. The Secretaryof the Navy—it must have been the first Crowninshield,though he is a man I do not remember—wasrequested to put Nolan on board a government vesselbound on a long cruise, and to direct that he shouldbe only so far confined there as to make it certain thathe never saw or heard of the country. We had fewlong cruises then, and the navy was very much outof favor; and as almost all of this story is traditional,as I have explained, I do not know certainly whathis first cruise was. But the commander to whom hewas intrusted,—perhaps it was Tingey or Shaw, thoughI think it was one of the younger men,—we are allold enough now,—regulated the etiquette and theprecautions of the affair, and according to his schemethey were carried out, I suppose, till Nolan died.
When I was second officer of the "Intrepid," somethirty years after, I saw the original paper of instructions.I have been sorry ever since that I did notcopy the whole of it. It ran, however, much in thisway:—
"WASHINGTON (with a date, whichhave been late in 1807).
"SIR,—You will receive from Lieutenant Nealethe person of Philip Nolan, late a Lieutenant in theUnited States Army.
"This person on his trial by court-martial expressedwith an oath the wish that he might 'never hear ofthe United States again.'
"The Court sentenced him to have his wish fulfilled.
"For the present, the execution of the order is intrustedby the President to this Department.
"You will take the prisoner on board your ship,and keep him there with such precautions as shall preventhis escape.
"You will provide him with such quarters, rations,and clothing as would be proper for an officer of hislate rank, if he were a passenger on your vessel onthe business of his Government.
"The gentlemen on board will make any arrangementsagreeable to themselves regarding his society.He is to be exposed to no indignity of any kind, noris he ever unnecessarily to be reminded that he is aprisoner.
"But under no circumstances is he ever to hear ofhis country or to see any information regarding it,and you will specially caution all the officers underyour command to take care, that, in the various indulgenceswhich may be granted, this rule, in whichhis punishment is involved, shall not be broken.
"It is the intention of the Government that heshall never again see the country which he has disowned.Before the end of your cruise you will receiveorders which will give effect to this intention.
"Respectfully yours,
"W. SOUTHARD, for the Secretary of the Navy."
If I had only preserved the whole of this paper,there would be no break in the beginning of my sketchof this story. For Captain Shaw, if it were he, handedit to his successor in the charge, and he to his, and Isuppose the commander of the Levant has it to-day ashis authority for keeping this man in this mild custody.
The rule adopted on board the ships on which Ihave met "the man without a country" was, I think,transmitted from the beginning. No mess liked tohave him permanently, because his presence cut off alltalk of home or of the prospect of return, of politicsor letters, of peace or of war,—cut off more thanhalf the talk men liked to have at sea. But it was alwaysthought too hard that he should never meet therest of us, except to touch hats, and we finally sankinto one system. He was not permitted to talk withthe men, unless an officer was by. With officers hehad unrestrained intercourse, as far as they and he chose.But he grew shy, though he had favorites: I was one.Then the captain always asked him to dinner on Monday.Every mess in succession took up the invitation inits turn. According to the size of the ship, you had himat your mess more or less often at dinner. His breakfasthe ate in his own state-room,—he always had astate-room,—which was where a sentinel or somebodyon the watch could see the door. And whateverelse he ate or drank, he ate or drank alone. Sometimes,when the marines or sailors had any specialjollification, they were permitted to invite "Plain-Buttons,"as they called him. Then Nolan was sentwith some officer, and the men were forbidden to speakof home while he was there. I believe the theorythat the sight of his punishment did them good. Theycalled him "Plain-Buttons," because, while he alwayschose to wear a regulation army-uniform, he was notpermitted to wear the army-button, for the reason thatit bore either the initials or the insignia of the countryhe had disowned.
I remember, soon after I joined the navy, I was onshore with some of the older officers from our ship andfrom the Brandywine, which we had met at Alexandria.We had leave to make a party and go up toCairo and the Pyramids. As we jogged along (youwent on donkeys then), some of the gentlemen (weboys called them "Dons," but the phrase was longsince changed) fell to talking about Nolan, and someone told the system which was adopted from the firstabout his books and other reading. As he was almostnever permitted to go on shore, even though the vessellay in port for months, his time at the best hungheavy; and everybody was permitted to lend himbooks, if they were not published in America andmade no allusion to it. These were common enoughin the old days, when people in the other hemispheretalked of the United States as little as we do of Paraguay.He had almost all the foreign papers that cameinto the ship, sooner or later; only somebody must goover them first, and cut out any advertisement orstray paragraph that alluded to America. This was alittle cruel sometimes, when the back of what was cutout might be as innocent as Hesiod. Right in themidst of one of Napoleon's battles, or one of Canning'sspeeches, poor Nolan would find a great hole,because on the back of the page of that paper therehad been an advertisement of a packet for New York,or a scrap from the President's message. I say thiswas the first time I ever heard of this plan, whichafterwards I had enough and more than enough to dowith. I remember it, because poor Phillips, who wasof the party, as soon as the allusion to reading wasmade, told a story of something which happened at theCape of Good Hope on Nolan's first voyage; and it isthe only thing I ever knew of that voyage. They hadtouched at the Cape, and had done the civil thing withthe English Admiral and the fleet, and then, leavingfor a long cruise up the Indian Ocean, Phillips hadborrowed a lot of English books from an officer, which,in those days, as indeed in these, was quite a windfall.Among them, as the Devil would order, was the "Layof the Last Minstrel," which they had all of themheard of, but which most of them had never seen. Ithink it could not have been published long. Well,nobody thought there could be any risk of anythingnational in that, though Phillips swore old Shaw hadcut out the "Tempest" from Shakespeare before he letNolan have it, because he said "the Bermudas ought tobe ours, and, by Jove, should be one day." So Nolanwas permitted to join the circle one afternoon when alot of them sat on deck smoking and reading aloud.People do not do such things so often now, but whenI was young we got rid of a great deal of time so.Well, so it happened that in his turn Nolan took thebook and read to the others; and he read very well,as I know. Nobody in the circle knew a line of thepoem, only it was all magic and Border chivalry, andwas ten thousand years ago. Poor Nolan read steadilythrough the fifth canto, stopped a minute and dranksomething, and then began, without a thought of whatwas coming,—
"Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,"—
It seems impossible to us that anybody ever heard thisfor the first time; but all these fellows did then, andpoor Nolan himself went on, still unconsciously ormechanically,—
"This is my own, my native land!"
Then they all saw something was to pay; but he expectedto get through, I suppose, turned a little pale,but plunged on,—
"Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?—
If such there breathe, go, mark him well,"—
By this time the men were all beside themselves, wishingthere was any way to make him turn over twopages; but he had not quite presence of mind forthat; he gagged a little, colored crimson, and staggeredon,—
"For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,
Despite these titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,"—
and here the poor fellow choked, could not go on, butstarted up, swung the book into the sea, vanished intohis state-room, "And by Jove," said Phillips, "we didnot see him for two months again. And I had tomake up some beggarly story to that English surgeonwhy I did not return his Walter Scott to him."
That story shows about the time when Nolan'sbraggadocio must have broken down. At first, theysaid, he took a very high tone, considered his imprisonmenta mere farce, affected to enjoy the voyage, andall that; but Phillips said that after he came out ofhis state-room he never was the same man again. Henever read aloud again, unless it was the Bible orShakespeare, or something else he was sure of. Butit was not that merely. He never entered in withthe other young men exactly as a companion again.He was always shy afterwards, when I knew him,—veryseldom spoke, unless he was spoken to, except toa very few friends. He lighted up occasionally,—Iremember late in his life hearing him fairly eloquenton something which had been suggested to him byone of Fléchier's sermons,—but generally he had thenervous, tired look of a heart-wounded man.
When Captain Shaw was coming home,—if, as Isay, it was Shaw,—rather to the surprise of everybody they made one of the Windward Islands, and layoff and on for nearly a week. The boys said the officerswere sick of salt-junk, and meant to have turtle-soupbefore they came home. But after several daysthe Warren came to the same rendezvous; they exchangedsignals; she sent to Phillips and these homeward-boundmen letters and papers, and told them shewas outward-bound, perhaps to the Mediterranean,and took poor Nolan and his traps on the boat back totry his second cruise. He looked very blank when hewas told to get ready to join her. He had knownenough of the signs of the sky to know that till thatmoment he was going "home." But this was a distinctevidence of something he had not thought of,perhaps,—that there was no going home for him,even to a prison. And this was the first of sometwenty such transfers, which brought him sooner orlater into half our best vessels, but which kept himall his life at least some hundred miles from the countryhe had hoped he might never hear of again.
It may have been on that second cruise,—it wasonce when he was up the Mediterranean,—that Mrs.Graff, the celebrated Southern beauty of those days,danced with him. They had been lying a long timein the Bay of Naples, and the officers were very intimatein the English fleet, and there had been greatfestivities, and our men thought they must give a greatball on board the ship. How they ever did it on boardthe "Warren" I am sure I do not know. Perhaps itwas not the "Warren," or perhaps ladies did not takeup so much room as they do now. They wanted touse Nolan's state-room for something, and they hatedto do it without asking him to the ball; so the captainsaid they might ask him, if they would be responsiblethat he did not talk with the wrong people, "whowould give him intelligence." So the dance went on,the finest party that had ever been known, I dare say;for I never heard of a man-of-war ball that was not.For ladies they had the family of the American consul,one or two travellers who had adventured so far, anda nice bevy of English girls and matrons, perhapsLady Hamilton herself.
Well, different officers relieved each other in standingand talking with Nolan in a friendly way, so as tobe sure that nobody else spoke to him. The dancingwent on with spirit, and after a while even the fellowswho took this honorary guard of Nolan ceased to fearany contretemps. Only when some English lady—LadyHamilton, as I said, perhaps—called for a setof "American dances," an odd thing happened.Everybody then danced contra-dances. The blackband, nothing loath, conferred as to what "Americandances" were, and started off with a "Virginia Reel,"which they followed with "Money-Musk," which, inits turn in those days, should have been followed by"The Old Thirteen." But just as Dick, the leader,tapped for his fiddles to begin, and bent forward, aboutto say, in true negro state, "'The Old Thirteen,gentlemen and ladies!" as he had said "'VirginnyReel,' if you please!" and "'Money-Musk,' if youplease!" the captain's boy tapped him on the shoulder,whispered to him, and he did not announce the nameof the dance; he merely bowed, began on the air, andthey all fell to,—the officers teaching the Englishgirls the figure, but not telling them why it had noname.
But that is not the story I started to tell.—As thedancing went on, Nolan and our fellows all got at ease,as I said,—so much so, that it seemed quite naturalfor him to bow to that splendid Mrs. Graff, and say,—
"I hope you have not forgotten me, Miss Rutledge.Shall I have the honor of dancing?"
He did it so quickly, that Fellows, who was by him,could not hinder him. She laughed and said,—
"I am not Miss Rutledge any longer, Mr. Nolan;but I will dance all the same," just nodded to Fellows,as if to say he must leave Mr. Nolan to her, and ledhim off to the place where the dance was forming.
Nolan thought he had got his chance. He hadknown her at Philadelphia, and at other places hadmet her, and this was a Godsend. You could nottalk in contra-dances, as you do in cotillons, or evenin the pauses of waltzing; but there were chancesfor tongues and sounds, as well as for eyes and blushes.He began with her travels, and Europe, and Vesuvius,and the French; and then, when they had workeddown, and had that long talking-time at the bottomof the set, he said, boldly,—a little pale, she said, asshe told me the story, years after,—
"And what do you hear from home, Mrs. Graff?"
And that splendid creature looked through him.Jove! how she must have looked through him!
"Home!! Mr. Nolan!!! I thought you were theman who never wanted to hear of home again!"—andshe walked directly up the deck to her husband,and left poor Nolan alone, as he always was.—He didnot dance again.
I cannot give any history of him in order; nobodycan now; and, indeed, I am not trying to. Theseare the traditions, which I sort out, as I believe them,from the myths which have been told about this manfor forty years. The lies that have been told abouthim are legion. The fellows used to say he was the"Iron Mask"; and poor George Pons went to hisgrave in the belief that this was the author of "Junius,"who was being punished for his celebrated libel onThomas Jefferson. Pons was not very strong in thehistorical line. A happier story than either of these Ihave told is of the War. That came along soon after.I have heard this affair told in three or four ways,—and,indeed, it may have happened more than once.But which ship it was on I cannot tell. However,in one, at least, of the great frigate-duels with theEnglish, in which the navy was really baptized, ithappened that a round-shot from the enemy enteredone of our ports square, and took right down the officerof the gun himself, and almost every man of thegun's crew. Now you may say what you chooseabout courage, but that is not a nice thing to see. But,as the men who were not killed picked themselves up,and as they and the surgeon's people were carrying offthe bodies, there appeared Nolan, in his shirt-sleeves,with the rammer in his hand, and, just as if he had beenthe officer, told them off with authority,—who shouldgo to the cockpit with the wounded men, who shouldstay with him,—perfectly cheery, and with that waywhich makes men feel sure all is right and is going tobe right. And he finished loading the gun withhis own hands, aimed it, and bade the men fire. Andthere he stayed, captain of that gun, keeping those fellowsin spirits, till the enemy struck,—sitting on thecarriage while the gun was cooling, though he was exposedall the time,—showing them easier ways tohandle heavy shot,—making the raw hands laugh attheir own blunders,—and when the gun cooled again,getting it loaded and fired twice as often as any othergun on the ship. The captain walked forward by wayof encouraging the men, and Nolan touched his hatand said,—
"I am showing them how we do this in the artillery,sir."
And this is the part of the story where all the legendsagree; and the Commodore said,—
"I see you do, and I thank you, sir; and I shallnever forget this day, sir, and you never shall, sir."
And after the whole thing was over, and he hadthe Englishman's sword, in the midst of the state andceremony of the quarter-deck, he said,—
"Where is Mr. Nolan? Ask Mr. Nolan to comehere."
And when Nolan came, the captain said,—
"Mr. Nolan, we are all very grateful to you to-day;you are one of us to-day; you will be named in thedespatches."
And then the old man took off his own sword ofceremony, and gave it to Nolan, and made him put iton. The man told me this who saw it. Nolan criedlike a baby, and well he might. He had not worn asword since that infernal day at Fort Adams. Butalways afterwards on occasions of ceremony, he worethat quaint old French sword of the Commodore's.
The captain did mention him in the despatches.It was always said he asked that he might be pardoned.He wrote a special letter to the Secretary ofWar. But nothing ever came of it. As I said, thatwas about the time when they began to ignore thewhole transaction at Washington, and when Nolan'simprisonment began to carry itself on because there wasnobody to stop it without any new orders from home.
I have heard it said that he was with Porter whenhe took possession of the Nukahiwa Islands. Notthis Porter, you know, but old Porter, his father, EssexPorter,—that is, the old Essex Porter, not thisEssex. As an artillery officer, who had seen servicein the West, Nolan knew more about fortifications,embrasures, ravelins, stockades, and all that, than anyof them did; and he worked with a right good-will infixing that battery all right. I have always thoughtit was a pity Porter did not leave him in commandthere with Gamble. That would have settled all thequestion about his punishment. We should have keptthe islands, and at this moment we should have onestation in the Pacific Ocean. Our French friends,too, when they wanted this little watering-place, wouldhave found it was preoccupied. But Madison and theVirginians, of course, flung all that away.
All that was near fifty year ago. If Nolan was thirtythen, he must have been near eighty when he died.He looked sixty when he was forty. But he neverseemed to me to change a hair afterwards. As I imaginehis life, from what I have seen and heard of it,he must have been in every sea, and yet almost neveron land. He must have known, in a formal way, moreofficers in our service than any man living knows.He told me once, with a grave smile, that no man inthe world lived so methodical a life as he. "Youknow the boys say I am the Iron Mask, and you knowhow busy he was." He said it did not do for any one totry to read all the time, more than to do anything elseall the time; but that he read just five hours a day."Then," he said, "I keep up my note-books, writingin them at such and such hours from what I have beenreading; and I include in these my scrap-books."These were very curious indeed. He had six or eight,of different subjects. There was one of History, oneof Natural Science, one which he called "Odds andEnds." But they were not merely books of extractsfrom newspapers. They had bits of plants and ribbons,shells tied on, and carved scraps of bone andwood, which he had taught the men to cut for him,and they were beautifully illustrated. He drew admirably.He had some of the funniest drawings there,and some of the most pathetic, that I have ever seen inmy life. I wonder who will have Nolan's scrap-books.
Well, he said his reading and his notes were his profession,and that they took five hours and two hoursrespectively of each day. "Then," said he, "everyman should have a diversion as well as a profession.My Natural History is my diversion." That tooktwo hours a day more. The men used to bring himbirds and fish, but on a long cruise he had to satisfyhimself with centipedes and cockroaches and such smallgame. He was the only naturalist I ever met whoknew anything about the habits of the house-fly and themosquito. All those people can tell you whether theyare Lepidoptera or Steptopotera; but as for telling howyou can get rid of them, or how they get away fromyou when you strike them,—why Linnæus knew aslittle of that as John Foy the idiot did. These ninehours made Nolan's regular daily "occupation." Therest of the time he talked or walked. Till he grewvery old, he went aloft a great deal. He always keptup his exercise; and I never heard that he was ill.If any other man was ill, he was the kindest nursein the world; and he knew more than half the surgeonsdo. Then if anybody was sick or died, or ifthe captain wanted him to, on any other occasion, hewas always ready to read prayers. I have said thathe read beautifully.
My own acquaintance with Philip Nolan began sixor eight years after the War, on my first voyage after Iwas appointed a midshipman. It was in the first daysafter our Slave-Trade treaty, while the Reigning House,which was still the House of Virginia, had still a sort ofsentimentalism about the suppression of the horrors ofthe Middle Passage, and something was sometimes donethat way. We were in the South Atlantic on thatbusiness. From the time I joined, I believe I thoughtNolan was a sort of lay chaplain,—a chaplain with ablue coat. I never asked about him. Everything inthe ship was strange to me. I knew it was green toask questions, and I suppose I thought there was a"Plain-Buttons" on every ship. We had him todine in our mess once a week, and the caution wasgiven that on that day nothing was to be said abouthome. But if they had told us not to say anythingabout the planet Mars or the Book of Deuteronomy,I should not have asked why; there were a greatmany things which seemed to me to have as little reason.I first came to understand anything about "theman without a country" one day when we overhauleda dirty little schooner which had slaves on board. Anofficer was sent to take charge of her, and, after a fewminutes, he sent back his boat to ask that some onemight be sent him who could speak Portuguese. Wewere all looking over the rail when the message came,and we all wished we could interpret, when the captainasked Who spoke Portuguese. But none of theofficers did; and just as the captain was sending forwardto ask if any of the people could, Nolan steppedout and said he should be glad to interpret, if the captainwished, as he understood the language. The captainthanked him, fitted out another boat with him, andin this boat it was my luck to go.
When we got there, it was such a scene as you seldomsee, and never want to. Nastiness beyond account,and chaos run loose in the midst of the nastiness.There were not a great many of the negroes; but byway of making what there were understand that theywere free, Vaughan had had their hand-cuffs and ankle-cuffsknocked off, and, for convenience' sake, wasputting them upon the rascals of the schooner's crew.The negroes were, most of them, out of the hold, andswarming all round the dirty deck, with a centralthrong surrounding Vaughan and addressing him inevery dialect, and patois of a dialect, from the Zuluclick up to the Parisian of Beledeljereed.
As we came on deck, Vaughan looked down from ahogshead, on which he had mounted in desperation,and said:—
"For God's love, is there anybody who can makethese wretches understand something? The men gavethem rum, and that did not quiet them. I knockedthat big fellow down twice, and that did not soothehim. And then I talked Choctaw to all of them together;and I'll be hanged if they understood that aswell as they understood the English."
Nolan said he could speak Portuguese, and one ortwo fine-looking Kroomen were dragged out, who, asit had been found already, had worked for the Portugueseon the coast at Fernando Po.
"Tell them they are free," said Vaughan; "andtell them that these rascals are to be hanged as soon aswe can get rope enough."
Nolan "put that into Spanish,"—that is, he explainedit in such Portuguese as the Kroomen couldunderstand, and they in turn to such of the negroesas could understand them. Then there was such ayell of delight, clinching of fists, leaping and dancing,kissing of Nolan's feet, and a general rush madeto the hogshead by way of spontaneous worship ofVaughan, as the deus ex machina of the occasion.
"Tell them," said Vaughan, well pleased, "that Iwill take them all to Cape Palmas."
This did not answer so well. Cape Palmas waspractically as far from the homes of most of themas New Orleans or Rio Janeiro was; that is, theywould be eternally separated from home there. Andtheir interpreters, as we could understand, instantlysaid, "Ah, non Palmas" and began to propose infiniteother expedients in most voluble language. Vaughanwas rather disappointed at this result of his liberality,and asked Nolan eagerly what they said. The dropsstood on poor Nolan's white forehead, as he hushedthe men down, and said:—
"He says, 'Not Palmas.' He says, 'Take ushome, take us to our own country, take us to our ownhouse, take us to our own pickaninnies and our ownwomen.' He says he has an old father and motherwho will die if they do not see him. And this onesays he left his people all sick, and paddled down toFernando to beg the white doctor to come and helpthem, and that these devils caught him in the bay justin sight of home, and that he has never seen anybodyfrom home since then. And this one says," chokedout Nolan, "that he has not heard a word from hishome in six months, while he has been locked up inan infernal barracoon."
Vaughan always said he grew gray himself whileNolan struggled through this interpretation. I, whodid not understand anything of the passion involved init, saw that the very elements were melting with ferventheat, and that something was to pay somewhere.Even the negroes themselves stopped howling, as theysaw Nolan's agony, and Vaughan's almost equal agonyof sympathy. As quick as he could get words, hesaid:—
"Tell them yes, yes, yes; tell them they shall goto the Mountains of the Moon, if they will. If I sailthe schooner through the Great White Desert, theyshall go home!"
And after some fashion Nolan said so. And thenthey all fell to kissing him again, and wanted to rubhis nose with theirs.
But he could not stand it long; and getting Vaughanto say he might go back, he beckoned me down intoour boat. As we lay back in the stern-sheets andthe men gave way, he said to me: "Youngster, letthat show you what it is to be without a family,without a home, and without a country. And if youare ever tempted to say a word or to do a thing thatshall put a bar between you and your family, yourhome, and your country, pray God in his mercy totake you that instant home to his own heaven. Stickby your family, boy; forget you have a self, whileyou do everything for them. Think of your home,boy; write and send, and talk about it. Let it benearer and nearer to your thought, the farther youhave to travel from it; and rush back to it, when youare free, as that poor black slave is doing now. Andfor your country, boy," and the words rattled in histhroat, "and for that flag," and he pointed to theship, "never dream a dream but of serving her as shebids you, though the service carry you through athousand hells. No matter what happens to you, nomatter who flatters you or who abuses you, neverlook at another flag, never let a night pass but youpray God to bless that flag. Remember, boy, thatbehind all these men you have to do with, behind officers,and government, and people even, there is theCountry Herself, your Country, and that you belongto Her as you belong to your own mother. Stand byHer, boy, as you would stand by your mother, if thosedevils there had got hold of her to-day!"
I was frightened to death by his calm, hard passion,but I blundered out, that I would, by all that washoly, and that I had never thought of doing anythingelse. He hardly seemed to hear me; but he did,almost in a whisper, say: "O, if anybody had said soto me when I was of your age!"
I think it was this half-confidence of his, which Inever abused, for I never told this story till now,which afterward made us great friends. He wasvery kind to me. Often he sat up, or even got up, atnight, to walk the deck with me, when it was mywatch. He explained to me a great deal of mymathematics, and I owe to him my taste for mathematics.He lent me books, and helped me about myreading. He never alluded so directly to his storyagain; but from one and another officer I have learned,in thirty years, what I am telling. When we partedfrom him in St. Thomas harbor, at the end of ourcruise, I was more sorry than I can tell. I was veryglad to meet him again in 1830; and later in life,when I thought I had some influence in Washington,I moved heaven and earth to have him discharged.But it was like getting a ghost out of prison. Theypretended there was no such man, and never wassuch a man. They will say so at the Departmentnow! Perhaps they do not know. It will not be thefirst thing in the service of which the Departmentappears to know nothing!
There is a story that Nolan met Burr once on oneof our vessels, when a party of Americans came onboard in the Mediterranean. But this I believe to bea lie; or, rather, it is a myth, ben trovato, involving atremendous blowing-up with which he sunk Burr,—askinghim how he liked to be "without a country."But it is clear from Burr's life, that nothing of thesort could have happened; and I mention this only asan illustration of the stories which get a-going wherethere is the least mystery at bottom.
So poor Philip Nolan had his wish fulfilled. Iknow but one fate more dreadful; it is the fate reservedfor those men who shall have one day to exilethemselves from their country because they have attemptedher ruin, and shall have at the same time tosee the prosperity and honor to which she rises whenshe has rid herself of them and their iniquities. Thewish of poor Nolan, as we all learned to call him, not becausehis punishment was too great, but because hisrepentance was so clear, was precisely the wish ofevery Bragg and Beauregard who broke a soldier'soath two years ago, and of every Maury and Barronwho broke a sailor's. I do not know how often theyhave repented. I do know that they have done allthat in them lay that they might have no country,—thatall the honors, associations, memories, and hopeswhich belong to "country" might be broken up intolittle shreds and distributed to the winds. I know,too, that their punishment, as they vegetate throughwhat is left of life to them in wretched Boulognes andLeicester Squares, where they are destined to upbraideach other till they die, will have all the agony ofNolan's, with the added pang that every one who seesthem will see them to despise and to execrate them.They will have their wish, like him.
For him, poor fellow, he repented of his folly, andthen, like a man, submitted to the fate he had askedfor. He never intentionally added to the difficulty ordelicacy of the charge of those who had him in hold.Accidents would happen; but they never happenedfrom his fault. Lieutenant Truxton told me, that,when Texas was annexed, there was a careful discussionamong the officers, whether they should get holdof Nolan's handsome set of maps, and cut Texas outof it,—from the map of the world and the map ofMexico. The United States had been cut out whenthe atlas was bought for him. But it was voted,rightly enough, that to do this would be virtually toreveal to him what had happened, or, as Harry Colesaid, to make him think Old Burr had succeeded. Soit was from no fault of Nolan's that a great botch happenedat my own table, when, for a short time, I wasin command of the George Washington corvette, onthe South American station. We were lying in theLa Plata, and some of the officers, who had been onshore, and had just joined again, were entertaining uswith accounts of their misadventures in riding thehalf-wild horses of Buenos Ayres. Nolan was attable, and was in an unusually bright and talkativemood. Some story of a tumble reminded him of anadventure of his own, when he was catching wildhorses in Texas with his adventurous cousin, at a timewhen he must have been quite a boy. He told thestory with a good deal of spirit,—so much so, that thesilence which often follows a good story hung over thetable for an instant, to be broken by Nolan himself.For he asked perfectly unconsciously:—
"Pray, what has become of Texas? After the Mexicansgot their independence, I thought that provinceof Texas would come forward very fast. It is reallyone of the finest regions on earth; it is the Italyof this continent. But I have not seen or heard aword of Texas for near twenty years."
There were two Texan officers at the table. Thereason he had never heard of Texas was that Texasand her affairs had been painfully cut out of hisnewspapers since Austin began his settlements; sothat, while he read of Honduras and Tamaulipas, and,till quite lately, of California,—this virgin province,in which his brother had travelled so far, and, I believe,had died, had ceased to be to him. Waters andWilliams, the two Texas men, looked grimly at eachother, and tried not to laugh. Edward Morris had hisattention attracted by the third link in the chain ofthe captain's chandelier. Watrous was seized with aconvulsion of sneezing. Nolan himself saw that somethingwas to pay, he did not know what. And I, asmaster of the feast, had to say,—
"Texas is out of the map, Mr. Nolan. Have youseen Captain Back's curious account of Sir ThomasRoe's Welcome?"
After that cruise I never saw Nolan again. I wroteto him at least twice a year, for in that voyage we becameeven confidentially intimate; but he never wroteto me. The other men tell me that in those fifteenyears he aged very fast, as well he might indeed, butthat he was still the same gentle, uncomplaining, silentsufferer that he ever was, bearing as best he could hisself-appointed punishment,—rather less social, perhaps,with new men whom he did not know, but moreanxious, apparently, than ever to serve and befriendand teach the boys, some of whom fairly seemed toworship him. And now it seems the dear old fellowis dead. He has found a home at last, and a country.
* * * * *
Since writing this, and while considering whetheror no I would print it, as a warning to the young Nolansand Vallandighams and Tatnalls of to-day of whatit is to throw away a country, I have received fromDanforth, who is on board the Levant, a letter whichgives an account of Nolan's last hours. It removesall my doubts about telling this story.
To understand the first words of the letter, the non-professionalreader should remember that after 1817,the position of every officer who had Nolan in chargewas one of the greatest delicacy. The governmenthad failed to renew the order of 1807 regarding him.What was a man to do? Should he let him go?What, then, if he were called to account by the Departmentfor violating the order of 1807? Should hekeep him? What, then, if Nolan should be liberatedsome day, and should bring an action for false imprisonmentor kidnapping against every man who had hadhim in charge? I urged and pressed this upon Southard,and I have reason to think that other officers did thesame thing. But the Secretary always said, as they sooften do at Washington, that there were no special ordersto give, and that we must act on our own judgment.That means, "If you succeed, you will be sustained;if you fail, you will be disavowed." Well, as Danforthsays, all that is over now, though I do not know but Iexpose myself to a criminal prosecution on the evidenceof the very revelation I am making.
Here is the letter:—
"LEVANT, 2° 2' S. @ 131° W.
"DEAR FRED:—I try to find heart and life to tellyou that it is all over with dear old Nolan. I havebeen with him on this voyage more than I ever was,and I can understand wholly now the way in whichyou used to speak of the dear old fellow. I could seethat he was not strong, but I had no idea the end wasso near. The doctor has been watching him verycarefully, and yesterday morning came to me and toldme that Nolan was not so well, and had not left hisstate-room,—a thing I never remember before. Hehad let the doctor come and see him as he lay there,—thefirst time the doctor had been in the state-room,—andhe said he should like to see me. O dear! doyou remember the mysteries we boys used to inventabout his room, in the old Intrepid days? Well, Iwent in, and there, to be sure, the poor fellow lay inhis berth, smiling pleasantly as he gave me his hand,but looking very frail. I could not help a glanceround, which showed me what a little shrine he hadmade of the box he was lying in. The stars andstripes were triced up above and around a picture ofWashington, and he had painted a majestic eagle, withlightnings blazing from his beak and his foot just claspingthe whole globe, which his wings overshadowed.The dear old boy saw my glance, and said, with a sadsmile, 'Here, you see, I have a country!' And thenhe pointed to the foot of his bed, where I had not seenbefore a great map of the United States, as he haddrawn it from memory, and which he had there to lookupon as he lay. Quaint, queer old names were on it,in large letters: 'Indiana Territory,' 'Mississippi Territory,'and 'Louisiana Territory,' as I suppose our fatherslearned such things: but the old fellow hadpatched in Texas, too; he had carried his westernboundary all the way to the Pacific, but on that shorehe had defined nothing.
"'O Danforth,' he said, 'I know I am dying. Icannot get home. Surely you will tell me somethingnow?—Stop! stop! Do not speak till I say what Iam sure you know, that there is not in this ship, thatthere is not in America,—God bless her!—a moreloyal man than I. There cannot be a man who lovesthe old flag as I do, or prays for it as I do, or hopesfor it as I do. There are thirty-four stars in it now,Danforth. I thank God for that, though I do notknow what their names are. There has never beenone taken away: I thank God for that. I know bythat that there has never been any successful Burr.O Danforth, Danforth,' he sighed out, 'how like awretched night's dream a boy's idea of personal fameor of separate sovereignty seems, when one looksback on it after such a life as mine! But tell me,—tellme something,—tell me everything, Danforth,before I die!'
"Ingham, I swear to you that I felt like a monsterthat I had not told him everything before. Dangeror no danger, delicacy or no delicacy, who was I, thatI should have been acting the tyrant all this time overthis dear, sainted old man, who had years ago expiated,in his whole manhood's life, the madness of a boy'streason? 'Mr. Nolan,' said I, 'I will tell you everything you ask about. Only, where shall I begin?'
"O the blessed smile that crept over his white face!and he pressed my hand and said, 'God bless you''Tell me their names,' he said, and he pointed to thestars on the flag. 'The last I know is Ohio. Myfather lived in Kentucky. But I have guessed Michiganand Indiana and Mississippi,—that was whereFort Adams is,—they make twenty. But whereare your other fourteen? You have not cut up anyof the old ones, I hope?'
"Well, that was not a bad text, and I told him thenames in as good order as I could, and he bade metake down his beautiful map and draw them in as Ibest could with my pencil. He was wild with delightabout Texas, told me how his cousin died there; hehad marked a gold cross near where he supposed hisgrave was; and he had guessed at Texas. Then hewas delighted as he saw California and Oregon;—that,he said, he had suspected partly, because he hadnever been permitted to land on that shore, thoughthe ships were there so much. 'And the men,' saidhe, laughing, 'brought off a good deal besides furs.'Then he went back—heavens, how far!—to askabout the Chesapeake, and what was done to Barronfor surrendering her to the Leopard, and whetherBurr ever tried again,—and he ground his teeth withthe only passion he showed. But in a moment thatwas over, and he said, 'God forgive me, for I am sureI forgive him.' Then he asked about the old war,—toldme the true story of his serving the gun the daywe took the Java,—asked about dear old David Porter,as he called him. Then he settled down morequietly, and very happily, to hear me tell in an hourthe history of fifty years.
"How I wished it had been somebody who knewsomething! But I did as well as I could. I told himof the English war. I told him about Fulton and thesteamboat beginning. I told him about old Scott, andJackson; told him all I could think of about the Mississippi,and New Orleans, and Texas, and his own oldKentucky. And do you think, he asked who was incommand of the 'Legion of the West.' I told him itwas a very gallant officer named Grant, and that, byour last news, he was about to establish his head-quartersat Vicksburg. Then, 'Where was Vicksburg?'I worked that out on the map; it was about a hundredmiles, more or less, above his old Fort Adams; and Ithought Fort Adams must he a ruin now. 'It mustbe at old Vick's plantation,' at Walnut Hills, said he:'well, that is a change!'
"I tell you, Ingham, it was a hard thing to condensethe history of half a century into that talk witha sick man. And I do not now know what I told him,—ofemigration, and the means of it,—of steamboats,and railroads, and telegraphs,—of inventions, andbooks, and literature,—of the colleges, and WestPoint, and the Naval School,—but with the queerestinterruptions that ever you heard. You see it wasRobinson Crusoe asking all the accumulated questionsof fifty-six years!
"I remember he asked, all of a sudden, who wasPresident now; and when I told him, he asked if OldAbe was General Benjamin Lincoln's son. He saidhe met old General Lincoln, when he was quite a boyhimself, at some Indian treaty. I said no, that OldAbe was a Kentuckian like himself, but I could not tellhim of what family; he had worked up from the ranks.'Good for him!' cried Nolan; 'I am glad of that.As I have brooded and wondered, I have thought ourdanger was in keeping up those regular successions inthe first families.' Then I got talking about my visitto Washington. I told him of meeting the OregonCongressman, Harding; I told him about the Smithsonian,and the Exploring Expedition; I told himabout the Capitol, and the statues for the pediment,and Crawford's Liberty, and Greenough's Washington:Ingham, I told him everything I could think ofthat would show the grandeur of his country and itsprosperity; but I could not make up my mouth to tellhim a word about this infernal Rebellion!
"And he drank it in, and enjoyed it as I cannottell you. He grew more and more silent, yet I neverthought he was tired or faint. I gave him a glass ofwater, but he just wet his lips, and told me not to goaway. Then he asked me to bring the Presbyterian'Book of Public Prayer,' which lay there, and said,with a smile, that it would open at the right place,—andso it did. There was his double red mark downthe page; and I knelt down and read, and he repeatedwith me, 'For ourselves and our country, Ogracious God, we thank Thee, that, notwithstandingour manifold transgressions of Thy holy laws, Thouhast continued to us Thy marvellous kindness,'—andso to the end of that thanksgiving. Then he turned tothe end of the same book, and I read the words morefamiliar to me: 'Most heartily we beseech Thee withThy favor to behold and bless Thy servant, the Presidentof the United States, and all others in authority,'—andthe rest of the Episcopal collect. 'Danforth,'said he, 'I have repeated those prayers night andmorning, it is now fifty-five years.' And then hesaid he would go to sleep. He bent me down overhim and kissed me; and he said, 'Look in my Bible,Danforth, when I am gone.' And I went away.
"But I had no thought it was the end. I thoughthe was tired and would sleep. I knew he was happyand I wanted him to be alone.
"But in an hour, when the doctor went in gentlyhe found Nolan had breathed his life away with asmile. He had something pressed close to his lips.It was his father's badge of the Order of the Cincinnati.
"We looked in his Bible, and there was a slip ofpaper at the place where he had marked the text:—
"'They desire a country, even a heavenly: whereforeGod is not ashamed to be called their God: forhe hath prepared for them a city.'
"On this slip of paper he had written:—
"'Bury me in the sea; it has been my home, andI love it. But will not some one set up a stone formy memory at Fort Adams or at Orleans, that mydisgrace may not be more than I ought to bear? Sayon it:—
In Memory of
PHILIP NOLAN,
Lieutenant in the Army of the United States.
He loved his country as no other man has loved her; but noman deserved less at her hands.'"
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