C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Philip Nolan

By Edward Everett Hale (1822–1909)

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 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 flatboat, 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 sacrificed in this unrequited affection for a politician the time which they devoted to Monongahela, hazard, and high-low-Jack. Bourbon, euchre, and poker were still unknown.

But one day Nolan had his revenge. This time Burr came down the river, not as an attorney seeking a place for his office, but as a distinguished conqueror. He had defeated I know not how many district attorneys; he had dined at I know not how many public dinners; he had been heralded in I know not how many Weekly Arguses, and it was rumored that he had an army behind him and an empire before him. It was a great day—his arrival—to poor Nolan. Burr had not been at the fort an hour before he sent for him. That evening he asked Nolan to take him out in his skiff, to show him a cane-brake 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. From that time, though he did not yet 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 and the house of Virginia of that day undertook to break on the wheel all the possible Clarences of the then house 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 is to-day, introduced the like novelty on their provincial stage; and to while away the monotony of the summer at Fort Adams, got up, for spectacles, a string of court-martials on the officers there. One and another of the colonels and majors were tried, and to fill out the list, little Nolan; against whom, Heaven knows there was evidence enough,—that he was sick of the service, had been willing to be false to it, and would have obeyed any order to march anywhither with any one who would follow him, had the order been signed “By command of His Exc. A. Burr.” The courts dragged on. The big flies escaped,—rightly, for all I know. Nolan was proved guilty enough, as I say; yet you and I would never have heard of him, reader, but that when the president of the court asked him at the close whether he wished to say anything to show that he had always been faithful to the United States, he cried out in a fit of frenzy:—

“Damn the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States again!”

I suppose he did not know how the words shocked old Colonel Morgan, who was holding the court. Half the officers who sat in it had served through the Revolution; and their lives, not to say their necks, had been risked for the very idea which he so cavalierly cursed in his madness. He on his part had grown up in the West of those days, in the midst of “Spanish plot,” “Orleans plot,” and all the rest. He had been educated on a plantation where the finest company was a Spanish officer or a French merchant from Orleans. His education, such as it was, had been perfected in commercial expeditions to Vera Cruz; and I think he told me his father once hired an Englishman to 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 had been fed by “United States” for all the years since he had been in the army. He had sworn on his faith as a Christian to be true to “United States.” It was “United States” which gave him the uniform he wore and the sword by his side. Nay, my poor Nolan, it was only because “United States” had picked you out first as one of her own confidential men of honor, that “A. Burr” cared for you a straw more than for the flatboatmen who sailed his ark for him. I do not excuse Nolan; I only explain to the reader why he damned his country, and wished he might never hear her name again.

He never did hear her name but once again. From that moment, September 23d, 1807, till the day he died, May 11th, 1863, he never heard her name again. For that half-century and more he was a man without a country.

Old Morgan, as I said, was terribly shocked. If Nolan had compared George Washington to Benedict Arnold, or had cried “God save King George!” Morgan would not have felt worse. He called the court into his private room, and returned in fifteen minutes with a face like a sheet, to say:—

“Prisoner, hear the sentence of the court! The court decides, subject to the approval of the President, that you never hear the name of the United States again.”

Nolan laughed. But nobody else laughed. Old Morgan was too solemn, and the whole room was hushed dead as night for a minute. Even Nolan lost his swagger in a moment. Then Morgan added:—

“Mr. Marshal, take the prisoner to Orleans in an armed boat, and deliver him to the naval commander there.”

The marshal gave his orders, and the prisoner was taken out of court.

“Mr. Marshal,” continued old Morgan, “see that no one mentions the United States to the prisoner. Mr. Marshal, make my respects to Lieutenant Mitchell at Orleans, and request him to order that no one shall mention the United States to the prisoner while he is on board ship. You will receive your written orders from the officer on duty here this evening. The court is adjourned without day.”…

Since writing this, and while considering whether or no I would print it as a warning to the young Nolans and Vallandighams and Tatnalls of to-day of what it is to throw away a country, I have received from Danforth, who is on board the Levant, a letter which gives an account of Nolan’s last hours. It removes all my doubts about telling this story.

To understand the first words of the letter, the non-professional reader should remember that after 1817 the position of every officer who had Nolan in charge was one of the greatest delicacy. The government had 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 Department for violating the order of 1807? Should he keep him? what then if Nolan should be liberated some day, and should bring an action for false imprisonment or kidnapping against every man who had had him in charge? I urged and pressed this upon Southard, and I have reason to think that other officers did the same thing. But the Secretary always said, as they so often do at Washington, that there were no special orders to 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 Danforth says, all that is over now; though I do not know but I expose myself to a criminal prosecution on the evidence of the very revelation I am making.

Here is the letter:—

Dear Fred:
I TRY to find heart and life to tell you that it is all over with dear old Nolan. I have been with him on this voyage more than I ever was; and I can understand wholly now the way in which you used to speak of the dear old fellow. I could see that he was not strong, but I had no idea the end was so near. The doctor has been watching him very carefully, and yesterday morning came to me and told me that Nolan was not so well, and had not left his state-room,—a thing I never remember before. He had let the doctor come and see him as he lay there,—the first time the doctor had been in the state-room,—and he said he should like to see me. Oh dear! do you remember the mysteries we boys used to invent about his room in the old “Intrepid” days? Well, I went in; and there to be sure the poor fellow lay in his berth, smiling pleasantly as he gave me his hand, but looking very frail. I could not help a glance round, which showed me what a little shrine he had made of the box he was lying in. The Stars and Stripes were triced up above and around a picture of Washington, and he had painted a majestic eagle, with lightnings blazing from his beak, and his foot just clasping the whole globe, which his wings overshadowed. The dear old boy saw my glance, and said with a sad smile, “Here, you see, I have a country!” And then he pointed to the foot of his bed, where I had not seen before a great map of the United States, as he had drawn it from memory, and which he had there to look upon as he lay. Quaint, queer old names were on it in large letters: “Indiana Territory,” “Mississippi Territory,” and “Louisiana Territory,” as I suppose our fathers learned such things: but the old fellow had patched in Texas too; he had carried his western boundary all the way to the Pacific, but on that shore he had defined nothing.

“O Danforth,” he said, “I know I am dying. I cannot get home. Surely you will tell me something now? Stop! stop! do not speak till I say what I am sure you know, that there is not in this ship, that there is not in America—God bless her!—a more loyal man than I. There cannot be a man who loves the old flag as I do, or prays for it as I do, or hopes for it as I do. There are thirty-four stars in it now, Danforth. I thank God for that, though I do not know what their names are. There has never been one taken away; I thank God for that. I know by that that there has never been any successful Burr. O Danforth, Danforth,” he sighed out, “how like a wretched night’s dream a boy’s idea of personal fame or of separate sovereignty seems, when one looks back on it after such a life as mine! But tell me, tell me something—tell me everything, Danforth, before I die!”

Ingham, I swear to you that I felt like a monster that I had not told him everything before. Danger or no danger, delicacy or no delicacy, who was I that I should have been acting the tyrant all this time over this dear sainted old man, who had years ago expiated, in his whole manhood’s life, the madness of a boy’s treason? “Mr. Nolan,” said I, “I will tell you everything you ask about. Only, where shall I begin?”

Oh, 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 the stars on the flag. “The last I know is Ohio. My father lived in Kentucky. But I have guessed Michigan and Indiana and Mississippi,—that was where Fort Adams is: they make twenty. But where are your other fourteen? You have not cut up any of the old ones, I hope.”

Well, that was not a bad text; and I told him the names in as good order as I could, and he bade me take down his beautiful map, and draw them in as I best could with my pencil. He was wild with delight about Texas,—told me how his cousin died there; he had marked a gold cross near where he supposed his grave was, and he had guessed at Texas. Then he was delighted as he saw California and Oregon; that, he said, he had suspected, partly because he had never been permitted to land on that shore, though the ships were there so much. “And the men,” said he laughing, “brought off a good deal besides furs.” Then he went back—heavens, how far!—to ask about the Chesapeake, and what was done to Barron for surrendering her to the Leopard, and whether Burr ever tried again,—and he ground his teeth with the only passion he showed. But in a moment that was over, and he said, “God forgive me, for I am sure I forgive him.” Then he asked about the old war; told me the true story of his serving the gun the day we took the Java; asked about dear old David Porter, as he called him. Then he settled down more quietly and very happily, to hear me tell in an hour the history of fifty years.

How I wished it had been somebody who knew something! But I did as well as I could. I told him of the English war. I told him about Fulton and the steamboat beginning. I told him about old Scott and Jackson; told him all I could think of about the Mississippi and New Orleans and Texas and his own old Kentucky. And do you think, he asked who was in command of the “Legion of the West”! I told him it was a very gallant officer named Grant, and that by our last news he was about to establish his headquarters at Vicksburg. Then, “Where was Vicksburg?” I worked that out on the map; it was about a hundred miles, more or less, above his old Fort Adams; and I thought Fort Adams must be a ruin now. “It must be 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 condense the history of half a century into that talk with a sick man. And I do not now know what I told him,—of immigration, and the means of it; of steamboats and railroads and telegraphs; of inventions and books and literature; of the colleges and West Point and the Naval School,—but with the queerest interruptions that ever you heard. You see, it was Robinson Crusoe asking all the accumulated questions of fifty-six years!

I remember he asked, all of a sudden, who was President now; and when I told him, he asked if Old Abe was General Benjamin Lincoln’s son. He said he met old General Lincoln when he was quite a boy himself, at some Indian treaty. I said no, that Old Abe was a Kentuckian like himself, but I could not tell him 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 our danger was in keeping up those regular successions in the first families.” Then I got talking about my visit to Washington. I told him of meeting the Oregon Congressman Harding; I told him about the Smithsonian and the Exploring Expedition; I told him about the Capitol, and the statues for the pediment, and Crawford’s Liberty, and Greenough’s Washington. Ingham, I told him everything I could think of that would show the grandeur of his country and its prosperity; but I could not make up my mouth to tell him a word about this infernal Rebellion!

And he drank it in, and enjoyed it as I cannot tell you. He grew more and more silent, yet I never thought he was tired or faint. I gave him a glass of water, but he just wet his lips, and told me not to go away. 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,—and so it did. There was his double red mark down the page; and I knelt down and read, and he repeated with me:—“For ourselves and our country, O gracious God, we thank thee that notwithstanding our manifold transgressions of thy holy laws, thou hast continued to us thy marvelous kindness,”—and so to the end of that thanksgiving. Then he turned to the end of the same book, and I read the words more familiar to me:—“Most heartily we beseech thee with thy favor to behold and bless thy servant the President of the United States, and all others in authority,”—and the rest of the Episcopal collect. “Danforth,” said he, “I have repeated those prayers night and morning, it is now fifty-five years.” And then he said he would go to sleep. He bent me down over him, 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 thought he was tired and would sleep. I knew he was happy, and I wanted him to be alone.

But in an hour, when the doctor went in gently, he found Nolan had breathed his life away with a smile. 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 of paper at the place where he had marked the text:—

“They desire a country, even a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city.”

On this slip of paper he had written:—

BURY me in the sea; it has been my home, and I love it. But will not some one set up a stone for my memory at Fort Adams or at Orleans, that my disgrace may not be more than I ought to bear? Say on 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 no man deserved less at her hands.