The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1886-02-05
AMANW WITHOUT

Onthe 18th OF august, 1853, tbs
New York Herald contained the fol-
lowing announcement:
sNOLAN-Dicd on board q. g. Corvette
Leyant, Lat. 2 degrees IL minutes S.,
May. PHILIP NoLAE.n
This Of itself would attract no spe-
cial attention.
II happened to observe it," says
Edward Everett Hale, ssas my memo
ryfor names and peopleare good, and
thereader willsee, as he goes on, that
I had reason enough to remember
Philip Nolan.
aPhilip Nolan was as fine a young
officer as there was in the Legion Of
the West, as the Western division OF
the army wascalled, during Jefferson's
administration. When Aaron Burr
made his first dashing expedition
down to New Orleans in 1905, at Fort
Massac, or somewhere above on the
river he met, as the devil would have
it, this gay, dashing, bright young fell
low at sonle dinner party, / 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 awaited
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 q line did he have
in reply from the gay deceiver.
1.-THE next time Barr came downthe
river not as an attorney seeking q
place for his office, but as a disguised
%conqueror. He had defeated / know
not how many district attorneys; he
had dined at know not how many
public dinners; he had been heralded
IN ! know not how many Weekly Ar
gllses, and it was rumored he had an
army behind him and an empire be-
fore him. 1t was q great day for poor
Nolan. Burr had not been at the
fort m hour before he sent for him.
That evening Nolan took him out in
his skif; before the saal was over
Nolan vas enlisted body and soul.
what Burr meant TO do / 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 then possible Clarences
OF sthe then House OF York, by the
great treason-trial at Richmond, some
Of the lesser-fry in thatdistant Missis-
sippi Valley, which was farther from
us than Puget's sound is to-day, in
trodueed 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 courtslnartiais on the officers there.
One and another OF the colonies and
majors We're tried, and to fill out the
list little Nolhn, against whom, Heav-
en- knows, theresWas evidence enough.
Nolan was proved guilty enough, as l
say; yet you and ] would never have
heard Of him hut that, when the Pres
ident OF the Court asked him at the
close whether he wished to say any
thing to show that he had always
been faithful to the United States, he
cried out, in u fit osfrenzy:
DIN the United Statesl l wish 1
may never hear OF the United States
again
II suppose he did not know how the
words shocked old Colonel 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
q Christian to be true to the United
States. 1t was the United States
which gave him the uniform he wore,
and the sword by his side. Nay, my
poor Nolan, it was only because
United Statss' had picked you out
first, as one OF her own confidential
men of honor, that Aaron Burr cared
for you a straw more than for the
fatboat men who sailed his ark for
him. He damned his country, and
wished he might never hear her fame
again.
'.IIHe never did hear her name but
once again. From that moment, Sep
tender %, 1907, till the day he died,
May IL, 1868. he never heard her
name again. For that half century
or more, he was % man without a
country
'sOld Morgan, as / said, wasterribly
shocked. If Nolan had compared
George Washington to Benedict Ar
mold, or 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 q face like o sheet, to say:
Z Prisoner, hear the sentence of.the
Court. The Court decides. subject to
the approval of the President, that
you never hear the name ofthe United
States again..
Nolan laughed. /, But nobody else
laughed. Then Morgan added:
"tMr, Marshal, take this prisoner to
Orleans in an armed boat and deliver
him. to the naval commander there,
s"Nolan was taken to New Orleans.
Colonel Morgan took the proceed
ings of the Court to Washington and
explained themto Mr.. Jefferson. They
were approved by the President. Be-
lore the Nautilus got round from New
Orleans to the Northern Atlantic coast
with the prisoner on board the SEN
tence had been approved, and Nolan
was a man without a country"
Mr.. Hale here writes as follows:
When / was second officer OF the In
trepid. come thirty years after, / saw
the. original paper Of instructions"
and he then gives it as closely rs his
memory will permit, tits as follows:
WASHINGTON -,1SO7.
aSIR-You will receive from Lieu
tenant Neale the person OF. Philip
Nolan, late q Lieutenants in the U. s.
army.
This person, on his trial by court
martial, expressed with an oath the
wish that he might never hear of the