Tombstone epitaph., 1917-06-03

l suppose mat very lew 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 U. S. Cor vette Levant, Lat. 2' II" S, Long. l3l' w., on the 1lth of May, Philip Nolan"
 l happened to observe it, because I was stranded at the old Mission house in Mackinac, waiting for Lake Superior steamer which did not choose to come, and I was devouring. to the very stubble, all the current literature 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 Leyant who reported it had chosen to make 1t thus: Died, May 11th, The Man without a Coun- try" For 1t was as The Man with put 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 all the men who had sailed under them. 1 dare say there Is many a man who aas taken wine with him once fort night, in a three years cruise, who never knew that his name was No !an," or whether the poor wretch had any name at all-
 There can now be no possible harm h telling this poor creatures story. Reason enough there has been till aow, ever since MadiSOn's administra- lion went out in 1877, 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 es- prit de corps of the profession and the personal honor of its members, that 10 the press this mans story has been wholly unknown, and, I think, to the country at large also.
 l have reason to think, from some investigations l made in the naval archives when I was attached to the  icial report relating to him was burned when Ross burned the public buildings tt Washington. One of the Fuckers. r possibly one of the Watsons. had Nolan in charge at the end of the war; md when, on returning from his cruise, le reported at Washington to one of he CrOwninshields-wh was in the navy department when he came home he found that the department ig- iored the whole business. Whether hey really knew nothing about it, or whether it was a non mi ricordo, de- ermined on as a piece of policy. I do not know. But this I do know. that since 1877, and possibly before, no naval officer has mentioned Nolan in lis report of 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 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 eI- pedition down to New Orleans in 1895, 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 fiatboat, 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-wrotc 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 affec- ton for a politician the time which they devoted to Monongahela, sledge, and high-iow-jack. Bourbon. euchre'