The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-03-13

~VH1LIP NOLAN was as fine q
III young officer as there was In
III 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 1905 at Fort
Massac or somewhere above on the
river he met. as the devil would have
It, this gay. dashing, bright young fel
low at some dinner party. | think
Burr marked him, talked to him, walk
ed with him, took him a day or two's
voyage in his fatboat and, in short.
fascinated him. For the next year
barrack life was very tame to poor
Nolan He occasionally availed Of the
permission the great man had given
him to write to him. The other boys
in the garrison sneered at him because
he sacrificed in this unrequited affec
ton for a politician the time which
they devoted to monongahela, sledge
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 place for his of
fee. but as a disguised conqueror. Ii
hind him and an empire before him
1t was 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 cottonwood 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 1T. he lived
as "a man without a country"
What Burr meant to do / know no
more than you. dear reader. 1t Is none
of our business just now. Only when
the grand catastrophe came some of
the lesser fry in that distant Missis-
sippi valley to while away the mono
tony of the summer at Fort Adams
got up for spectacles string OF court
martials on the officers there. One
and another of the colonies and majors
were tried. and. to FIJI out the list. little
Nolan, against whom. heaven knows,
there was evidence enough-that he
was sick of the service, had been will
ing to be false to it and would have
obeyed any order to march anywhither
with any one who would follow him
had the order only been signed. by
command of His Exc. A. Burr" The
courts dragged ON. The big flies es-
ped-rightly for all | know. Nolan
was proved guilty enough as l say, yet
yon and | would never have heard of
him. reader. but that when the presi-
dent 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 a fit of frenzy:
d the United States. 1 wish !
may never hear of the United States
again.
! suppose he did not know how the
words shocked old Colonel Morgan.
who was holding the court. Nolan
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 Span
ish officer or Il French merchant from
Orleans. His education. such as II
was. had been perfected in commercial
expeditions to Vera Cruz and ] think
be told me his father once hired an
Englishman to be IL private tutor for q
winter on the plantation He had spent
Aalf his youth with an older brother
hunting horses in Texas, and. in a word.
to him United States was scarce
~ a reality Yet be had been fed by
United States for all the years since
he had been in the army. He had
sworn on his faith as Christian to be
true to United States" 1t was Unit
Ell States which gave him the uniform
he wore and the sword by his side.
do not excuse Nolan. 1 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. Sept
%. 1907. till the day he died. May IL.
1863. be never heard her name again
For that half century and more he was
o man without a country.
2 Old Morgan. as / said. was terribly
shocked. He called the court into his
private room and returned in fifteen
minutes with 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 s
Nolan laughed. But nobody else
laughed. Old Morgan was too solemn,