The Oakley herald. [volume] (Oakley, Idaho) 1908-1961, 1917-06-22


readers of the New York Herald of
August 18th observed, in an obscure
corner, among the Deaths" the an
n0uncement:
NOLAN. Died, on board U. s. Cor
vctfe Levant, Lat. % IL" s., Long. 1917
W.. on the 11th Of May, Philip Nolan"
1 happened to observe it, because
wAs stranded at the old Mission
house In Mackinac. waiting for Lake
Superior steamer which did not choose
to come, and l was devouring, to the
very stubble, all the current literature
could get hold OF, even down to the
deaths and marriages In the Herald"
Ny memory for names and people is
good. and the reader will see as he
EDcs on, that had reason enough to
remember Philip Nolan. There are
hundreds of readers who would have
paused MT that announcement, Ii the
snscer Of the Levant who reported 1t
had chosen to make 1t thus: ''Died
Nay 11th, The Man without Coun-
try For 1t was as 1.-THE Man with
cut Country" that poor Philip Nolan
had generally been known by the off,
GERS who had him In charge during
some fifty years, as, indeed, by all
the men who had sailed under them.
I dare say there Is many a man who
has taken wine with him once a fort
Night, In three years. cruise, who
never knew that his name was mo
TAM" or whether the poor wretch had
any name at all.
There can now be no possible harm
In telling this poor creatures story.
Reason enough there has Been till
VOW. ever since Madison's administra-
tton went out In 1917, 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-
prft dc corps of the profession and the
personal honor of its members, that to
the press this mans story has been
wholly unknown, and, think, to the
country at large also.
i have reason to think, from some
Investigations l made In the naval
archives when I was attached to the
bureau of construction, that every Of
acfnl report relating to him was burned
when Ross burned the public buildings
ut Washington. One of the fuckers,
~ possibly one of the Watsons, had
Nolan In charge at the end of the war
and when, on returning from his cruise,
he reported at Washington to one of
the Crownlnshields-wh was In the
navy department when he came home
he found that the department ig-
sored the whole business. Whether
they really knew nothing about 1t, or
whether 1t was a non mi ricordo, de-
tcruined on as piece of policy, do
rot know. But this / do know. that
since 1877, and possibly before, no
naval officer has mentioned Nolan in
MS report of a cruise.
As I say, there Is no need for Sc
creature is dead, it seems to me worth
while to tell little of his story, by
way of showing young Americans of
today what it 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 ex-
petition down to New Orleans in 1906,
at Fort Massac. or somewhere above
GA the river, he met, as the devil
would have 1T, this gay, dashing bright
young fellow, at some dinner party,
/ think. Burr marked him, talked to
him, walked with him, took him q 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. stilted letters the poor boy
wrote and re-wrote 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 politician the time which
they de, oted to Monongahela, sledge,