"Where is Mr. Nolan? Ask Mr. Nolan to come here."

And when Nolan came, he said,--

"Mr. Nolan, we are all very grateful to you to-day; you are one of us
to-day; you will be named in the despatches."

And then the old man took off his own sword of ceremony, and gave it to
Nolan, and made him put it on. The man told me this who saw it. Nolan
cried like a baby, and well he might. He had not worn a sword since that
infernal day at Fort Adams. But always afterwards on occasions of
ceremony, he wore that quaint old French sword of the commodore's.

The captain did mention him in the despatches. It was always said he
asked that he might be pardoned. He wrote a special letter to the
Secretary of War. But nothing ever came of it. As I said, that was about
the time when they began to ignore the whole transaction at Washington,
and when Nolan's imprisonment began to carry itself on because there was
nobody to stop it without any new orders from home.

I have heard it said that he was with Porter when he took possession of
the Nukahiwa Islands. Not this Porter, you know, but old Porter, his
father, Essex Porter,--that is, the old Essex Porter, not this Essex.
[Note 9] As an artillery officer, who had seen service in the West,
Nolan knew more about fortifications, embrasures, ravelins, stockades,
and all that, than any of them did; and he worked with a right good-will
in fixing that battery all right. I have always thought it was a pity
Porter did not leave him in command there with Gamble. That would have
settled all the question about his punishment. We should have kept the
islands, and at this moment we should have one station in the Pacific