"_Levant_, 2° 2' S. @ 131° W.
"DEAR FRED,--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 had 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 Stales, 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,' as 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.
"'Oh, Danforth,' 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. Oh, 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 brother died there; he had marked a gold cross
where he supposed his brother's 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 besides 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 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
head-quarters 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 Vicks's plantation,' 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
favor 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 those 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, Danforth, 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 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
some one 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.'"
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