But, as I say, there is no need for secrecy any longer. And now the poor
creature is dead, it seems to me worth while to tell a little of his
story, by way of showing young Americans of to-day 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 expedition down to New Orleans in
1805, 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 flat-boat, 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 rewrote 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 affection for a politician the time
which they devoted to Monongahela, sledge, and high-low-jack. Bourbon,
euchre, and poker were still unknown. But one day Nolan had his revenge.
This time Burr came down the river, not as an attorney seeking a place
for his office, but as a disguised conqueror. He had defeated I know not
how many district-attorneys; he had dined at I know not how many public
dinners; he had been heralded in I know not how many Weekly Arguses; and
it was rumored that he had an army behind him and an empire before him.
It was a great day--his arrival--to poor Nolan. Burr had not been at the
fort an hour before he sent for him. That evening he asked Nolan to take
him out in his skiff, to show him a canebrake or a cotton-wood tree, as
he said,--really to seduce him; and by the time the sail was over, Nolan