I try to find heart and life to tell you that it is all over
with dear old Nolan. I have been with him on this voyage
more than I ever was, and I can understand wholly now the
way in which you used to speak of the dear old fellow. I
could see that he was not strong, but I had no idea the end
was so near. The doctor has been watching him very
carefully, and yesterday morning came to me and told me that
Nolan was not so well, and had not left his state-room--a
thing I never remember before. He had let the doctor come
and see him as he lay there--the first time the doctor had
been in the state-room--and he said he should like to see
me. Oh, dear! do you remember the mysteries we boys used to
invent about his room in the old _Intrepid_ days? Well, I
went in, and there, to be sure, the poor fellow lay in his
berth, smiling pleasantly as he gave me his hand, but
looking very frail. I could not help a glance round, which
showed me what a little shrine he had made of the box he was
lying in. The Stars and Stripes were triced up above and
around a picture of Washington, and he had painted a
majestic eagle, with lightnings blazing from his beak and
his foot just clasping the whole globe, which his wings
overshadowed. The dear old boy saw my glance, and said, with
a sad smile, "Here, you see, I have a country!" And then he
pointed to the foot of his bed, where I had not seen before
a great map of the United States, as he had drawn it from
memory, and which he had there to look upon as he lay.
Quaint, queer old names were on it, in large letters:
"Indiana Territory," "Mississippi Territory," and "Louisiana
Territory." I suppose our fathers learned such things: but
the old fellow had patched in Texas, too; he had carried his
western boundary all the way to the Pacific, but on that
shore he had defined nothing.
"O Captain," he said, "I know I am dying. I cannot get home.
Surely you will tell me something now?--Stop! stop! Do not
speak till I say what I am sure you know, that there is not
in this ship, that there is not in America--God bless
her!--a more loyal man than I. There cannot be a man who
loves the old flag as I do, or prays for it as I do, or
hopes for it as I do. There are thirty-four stars in it now,
Danforth. I thank God for that, though I do not know what
their names are. There has never been one taken away: I
thank God for that. I know by that that there has never been
any successful Burr, O Danforth, Danforth," he sighed out,
"how like a wretched night's dream a boy's idea of personal
fame or of separate sovereignty seems; when one looks back
on it after such a life as mine! But tell me--tell me
something--tell me everything, Danforth, before I die!"
Ingham, I swear to you that I felt like a monster that I had
not told him everything before. Danger or no danger,
delicacy or no delicacy, who was I, that I should have been
acting the tyrant all this time over this dear, sainted old
man, who had years ago expiated, in his whole manhood's
life, the madness of a boy's treason? "Mr. Nolan," said I,
"I will tell you everything you ask about. Only, where shall
I begin?"
Oh, the blessed smile that crept over his white face! and he
pressed my hand and said, "God bless you! Tell me their
names," he said, and he pointed to the stars on the flag.
"The last I know is Ohio. My father lived in Kentucky. But I
have guessed Michigan and Indiana and Mississippi--that was
where Fort Adams is--they make twenty. But where are your
other fourteen? You have not cut up any of the old ones, I
hope?"
Well, that was not a bad text, and I told him the names in
as good order as I could, and he bade me take down his
beautiful map and draw them in as I best could with my
pencil. He was wild with delight about Texas, told me how
his cousin died there; he had marked a gold cross near where
he supposed his grave was; and he had guessed at Texas. Then
he was delighted as he saw California and Oregon,--that, he
said, he had suspected partly, because he had never been
permitted to land on that shore, though the ships were there
so much. "And the men," said he, laughing, "brought off a
good deal beside furs." Then he went back--heavens, how
far!--to ask about the _Chesapeake_, and what was done to
Barron for surrendering her to the _Leopard_, and whether
Burr ever tried again--and he ground his teeth with the only
passion he showed. But in a moment that was over, and he
said, "God forgive me, for I am sure I forgive him." Then he
asked about the old war--told me the true story of his
serving the gun the day we took the _Java_--asked about dear
old David Porter, as he called him. Then he settled down
more quietly, and very happily, to hear me tell in an hour
the history of fifty years.
How I wished it had been somebody who knew something! But I
did as well as I could. I told him of the English war. I
told him about Fulton and the steamboat beginning. I told
him about old Scott, and Jackson; told him all I could think
of about the Mississippi, and New Orleans, and Texas, and
his own old Kentucky. And do you think, he asked who was in
command of the "Legion of the West." I told him it was a
very gallant officer named Grant, and that, by our last
news, he was about to establish his headquarters at
Vicksburg. Then, "Where was Vicksburg?" I worked that out on
the map; it was about a hundred miles, more or less, above
his old Fort Adams and I thought Fort Adams must be a ruin
now. "It must be at old Vick's plantation, at Walnut Hills,"
said he: "well, that is a change!"
I tell you, Ingham, it was a hard thing to condense the
history of half a century into that talk with a sick man.
And I do not now know what I told him--of emigration, and
the means of it--of steamboats, and railroads, and
telegraphs--of inventions, and books, and literature--of the
colleges, and West Point, and the Naval School--but with the
queerest interruptions that ever you heard. You see it was
Robinson Crusoe asking all the accumulated questions of
fifty-six years!
I remember he asked, all of a sudden, who was President now;
and when I told him, he asked if Old Abe was General
Benjamin Lincoln's son. He said he met old General Lincoln,
when he was quite a boy himself, at some Indian treaty. I
said no, that Old Abe was a Kentuckian like himself, but I
could not tell him of what family; he had worked up from the
ranks. "Good for him!" cried Nolan; "I am glad of that. As I
have brooded and wondered, I have thought our danger was in
keeping up those regular successions in the first families."
Then I got talking about my visit to Washington. I told him
of meeting the Oregon Congressman, Harding; I told him about
the Smithsonian, and the Exploring Expedition; I told him
about the Capitol and the statues for the pediment, and
Crawford's Liberty, and Greenough's Washington: Ingham, I
told him everything I could think of that would show the
grandeur of his country and its prosperity; but I could not
make up my mouth to tell him a word about this infernal
rebellion!
And he drank it in and enjoyed it as I cannot tell you. He
grew more and more silent, yet I never thought he was tired
or faint. I gave him a glass of water, but he just wet his
lips, and told me not to go away. Then he asked me to bring
the Presbyterian "Book of Public Prayer" which lay there,
and said, with a smile, that it would open at the right
place--and so it did. There was his double red mark down the
page; and I knelt down and read, and he repeated with me,
"For ourselves and our country, O gracious God, we thank
Thee, that, notwithstanding our manifold transgressions of
Thy holy laws, Thou hast continued to us Thy marvellous
kindness," and so to the end of that thanksgiving. Then he
turned to the end of the same book, and I read the words
more familiar to me: "Most heartily we beseech Thee with Thy
favour to behold and bless Thy servant, the President of the
United States, and all others in authority"--and the rest of
the Episcopal collect. "Danforth," said he "I have repeated
these prayers night and morning, it is now fifty-five
years." And then he said he would go to sleep. He bent me
down over him and kissed me; and he said, "Look in my Bible,
Captain, when I am gone." And I went away.
But I had no thought it was the end. I thought he was tired
and would sleep. I knew he was happy, and I wanted him to be
alone.
But in an hour, when the doctor went in gently, he found
Nolan had breathed his life away with a smile. He had
something pressed close to his lips. It was his father's
badge of the Order of the Cincinnati.
We looked in his Bible, and there was a slip of paper at the
place where he had marked the text--
"They desire a country, even a heavenly: wherefore God is
not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for
them a city."
On this slip of paper he had written:
"Bury me in the sea; it has been my home, and I love it. But
will not someone set up a stone for my memory at Fort Adams
or at Orleans, that my disgrace may not be more than I
ought to bear? Say on it:
"_In Memory of_
"PHILIP NOLAN,
"_Lieutenant in the Army of the United States._
"He loved his country as no other man has
loved her; but no man deserved less at
her hands."