The Dermott news., 1917-05-24

RNRRRRHH<N<ARR
 l suppose that very few casual readers of the New York Herald of August 18th observed. in an obscure corner, among the Deaths" the an- nouncement:
 NOLAN. Died on board r. s. Cor yette Levant. Lat. % II" S. Long. 1319 w, on the 11th of May. Philip Nolan."
 l happened to observe if, because was stranded at the old Mission house in Mackinac. waiting for Lake Superior steamer which did not choose to come. and l was deyouring, to the very stubble. all the current literature l 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 1 had reason enough to remember Philip Nolan. There are hundreds of renders who would have paused at that announcement. If the officer of the Levant who reported Il had chosen to make It thus: eDied, May 11th, The Man without Coun- try" For IL was as The Man with ou, Country" that poor Philip Nolan had generally been known by the off cers who had him in charge during some fifty years, as, indeed. by ail the men who had sailed under them. dare say there Is many Il man who has taken wine with him once Il fort night, in three years cruise. who never knew that his name was "No- ian." or whether the poor wretch had anX name at all.
 There can now be no possible harm in telling this poor creatures story, RI Ison enough there has been till now, ever since MadIson's administra- ton went out in 1sl7. for very strict secrecy. the secrecy of honor itself. among the gentlemen of the navy who have had Nolan in successive charge. And certainly 1t speaks well for the es- prit de corps of the profession and the personal honor of its members, that to the press this mans story has been wholly unknown, and, l think, to the country at large also.
 l have reason to think. from some Investigations 1 made in the naval archives when l was attached to the bureau of construction, that every of ticial report relating 10 him was burned when Ross burned the public buildings at Washington. One of the Fuckers. or possibly one of the Watsons. had Nolan in charge at the end of the war !; aid when. on returning from hls cruise, he reported at Washington to one of tfe Crownlnshlelds-w was in the navy department when he came home he found that the department ig- uored the whole business. Whether they really knew nothing about it, or whether IL was non mi ricordo. de termined on as a piece of policy, l do not know. But this l do know, that since 1877, and possibly before. no naval officer has mentioned Nolan in his report of n cruise.
 AS l say. there is no need for se- crecy any longer. And now the poor creature is dead, 1t seems to me worth while to tell little of his story. by way of showing young Americans of today what 1t is to be
 A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
 Philip Nolan was ms fine 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 ex- pedition down to New Orleans in 1905, at Fort Massac, or somewhere above on the river, he met, as the devil would have 1t, this gay, dashlng. bright young fellow, at some dinner party, think. Burr marked him, talked to him. walked with him. took him a day or two's voyage in his natboat. 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. Long. high worded. suited letters the poor boy wrote and re-wrote and copied. But never n line did he have fin reply from the gay deceiyer. 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. aud high-low-jack. Bourbon, euchre.