The Man Without a Country, and Other Tales, Edward Everett Hale [best books to read for self development txt] 📗

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 [pg 006] 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 I have it not to send.

I remembered, when I was collecting material for my story, that in General Wilkinson's galimatias, which he calls his "Memoirs," is frequent reference to a business partner of his, of the name of Nolan, who, in the very beginning of this century, was killed in Texas. Whenever Wilkinson found himself in rather [pg 007] a deeper bog than usual, he used to justify himself by saying that he could not explain such or such a charge because "the papers referring to it were lost when Mr. Nolan was imprisoned in Texas." Finding this mythical character in the mythical legends of a mythical time, I took the liberty to give him a cousin, rather more mythical, whose adventures should be on the seas. I had the impression that Wilkinson's friend was named Stephen,—and as such I spoke of him in the early editions of this story. But long after this was printed, I found that the New Orleans paper was right in saying that the Texan hero 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,—when the Spanish Government murdered him and imprisoned his associates for life. I have done my best to repair my fault, and to recall to memory a brave man, by telling the story of his fate, in a book called "Philip Nolan's Friends." To the historical statements in that book the reader is referred. That the Texan Philip Nolan played an important, though forgotten, part in our national history, the reader will understand,—when I say that the 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 a liberty to take in fiction, I venture to remind him that "'Tis sixty years since"; and that I should have the highest authority in literature even for much greater liberties taken with annals so far removed from our time.

A Boston paper, in noticing the story of "My Double," contained in another part of this collection, said it was highly improbable. I have always agreed with that critic. I confess I have the same opinion of this story of Philip Nolan. It passes on ships which had no existence, is vouched for by officers who never lived. Its hero is in two or three places at the same time, under a process wholly impossible under any conceivable administration [pg 008] of affairs. When my friend, Mr. W.H. Reed, sent me from City Point, in Virginia, the record of the death of PHILIP NOLAN, a negro from Louisiana, who died in the cause of his country in service in a colored regiment, I felt that he had done something to atone for the imagined guilt of the imagined namesake of his unfortunate god-father.

E.E.H.

ROXBURY, MASS., March 20, 1886.

* * * * *

I supposed that very few casual readers of the New York Herald of August 18th observed, in an obscure corner, among the "Deaths," the announcement,—

"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 at the old Mission-House 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 11th, 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 [pg 009] 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 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. [pg 010]

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 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 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 disguised conqueror. He had defeated