The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1886-03-27
f(p"o"ss. An'saot'. fiction.
WITHOUT A COUNTRY,
y IitiiUi story OF OUe of Aaron Burr's
ENiied Lieutenants-Finy-SiX Years
on the Water.

y rittfui story of One of Aaron Burr's
EN'ied observation-disclosures Years
ON the Water.
On the 18th of August, 1868, the
New York H2aH contained the fo,-
lowing announcement
'NoIAN-Died on board L. S. Corvette
Levant, Lat. . degrees / minutes s.,
Long l3i degrees W., Oh the It'll day of
May, Philip Nolan"
This of itself would attract no sre-
ciai attention.
Il happened to observe it," says
Edward Everett Hale, "as my memory
for names and people are good, and
the reader Will see as he goes OH that
had reason enough the remember Philip
Nolan.
"Philip Nolan was as fine young
officer as there was in the Legion of
the West, as the Western division OF
the army was called during Jeferson's
administration. When Aaron Burr
made his first dashing expedition down
to New Orleans IN 1905 at Fort Mas
sac, OF somewhere above on the river
he net, as the devil would have it, this
gay, dashing, bright young fellow at
some dinner party, think. Burr
marked him, talked to him, walked
with him, took him day or two's voy-
age in his fatboat, and, in short, fasci-
mated him. For the next year barrack
life was very tame to poor Nolan. He
occasionally availcd himself of the per-
mission the great man had given him
to write to him. Long, high worded,
silted letters the poor boy wrote and
rewrote and copied. But never line
did he have in reply from the gay de-
ceiver.
The next time Burr came down the
river, not as an attorney seeking a place
lor his office, but as disguised con-
lueror. He had defeated | know not
how many district attorneys; he had
dined al l know not how many public
dinners; he had been heralded in |
know no. how many weekly Arguses,
and it was rumored he had an army
behind him. 1t was great day for
poor Nolan. Burr had not been at the
fort an hour before he sent for him.
That evening Nolan took him out in
the skifi; before the sail was over No
Ian was enlisted body and soul.
"What Burr meant to do know no
more than you, dear reader. 1t is none
O. our business just now. Only when
the grand catastrophe came, and poor
Jefferson and the House of Virginia of
that day undertook to break on the
wheel al. the then possible Clarences
of the then House of York by the
great treason, trial at Richmond, some
of the lesser fry in that distant Missis-
sippi Valley, which was further from us
than Puget's sound is to-day, intro
duced the like novelty on their provin-
cial stage, and, to while away the mo-
notony OF the summer at Fort Adams,
got up for spectaclcs string Of court
martial or the officers there. One and
another of the Colonies and Majors
were tried, and, to fill out the list, little
Nolan, against whom, Heaven knows,
there was evidence enough. Nolan
was proved guilty enough, as | say yet
YOU and would not have heard of
him 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
tit Of frenzy:
"D-n the United States | wish
| may never hear Of the United States
again
81 suppose he did not know how the
words shocked old Morgan, who was
holding the court. He had been fed
by the 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, which gave
him the uniform he wore and the sword
by has side. Nay, my poor Nolan, il
was only because the United States had
picked you out first, as enc of her own
confidential men of honor that Aaron
BUR- cared for you a straw more than
| for the fatboat men who sailed his ark
fer him. He damned his country, and
wished he might never hear her name
again
lie never did hear her name Int
once again. From that moment, Sep
TENDER g, 1907, till the day he died,
I May II, 1903, he never heard her name
again. For that half-century or more,
La ,,,or {, MAY, u-itbn,,t