More than four decades after Nolan’s death, the government that made him vanish allowed an obituary to be published in an obscure portion of the New York Herald:
NOLAN. Died on board the United States corvette Levant, latitude 2° 11' S, longitude 131° 0' W. On the 11th of May. PHILIP CLINTON NOLAN.
Nolan was dead, but every other word was a lie. He had been buried at sea decades before USS Levant ever swam, and the latitude and longitude in the notice of his death are halfway across the globe from the place he’d laid down his life. By the time the Herald’s obituary was printed not one of his family survived to mourn him and almost none of the men who knew him, served with him, or administered his sentence remained alive. Even as they acknowledged his death, the powers that abolished Philip Nolan pushed him deeper into shadow.
There can be no possible harm in telling poor Nolan’s story now. Those of his persecutors who would be disgraced by their treatment of him are, like Nolan himself, long beyond care. It is worthwhile to tell a little bit of Nolan’s life and of his captivity by way of showing what it is to be a man without a country. His story is an obscure bit of history but real enough; presently the reader may judge the facts. And though the tale is grim, it might as well begin on a pleasant spring day.
AN HOUR BEFORE DAWN ON A PALE MORNING—WEDNESDAY, THE 10TH OF JUNE, 1807. In the dark places of the forest locusts chattered, and the air was thick with the cloying scent of honeysuckle. Below the Chimborazo Hill, split rails followed a gravel road to the place where the James River narrowed and turned south. There, the sandy towpath branched past a sawmill and a squat, yellow tavern that was the southernmost habitation of the city of Richmond, Virginia.
Up the dim road, jingling and rattling, came a dray wagon pulled by a pair of sullen mules. Behind the team, a farmer slumped with the reins in one hand; a little boy in a straw hat lounged next to him on the box. Shifting his tobacco, the farmer saw a rider descending the long grade past the tavern. The horse was creditable, a dappled mare of nearly sixteen hands, and seemed to be handled by a gentleman. It was the farmer’s experience that swells abroad at dawn were frequently drunk, and often not riding their mounts as much as being carried by them. The farmer was not inclined to wish the man good morning, for as mount and passenger came on he could see that neither was paying much attention to the road.
As the rider approached, the boy noticed a silk cockade on the side of the man’s round hat, and then, paying attention, he picked out the details of a uniform. A tall, solid frame overflowed the saddle, and long legs in high Hessian boots kept easily in the stirrups. The man was wearing a blue cutaway with red collars, lapels, and cuffs, though in the early dawn the colors were much the same. The soldier’s sword was undone, and its curved scabbard hung from the pommel and coursed indifferently back and forth. For a long moment it was the glory of the uniform that the boy fixed upon—only when the horse drew abreast did he lift his eyes to the rider’s face. Under the round hat was a pair of deeply set gray-blue eyes ruled by fair, even brows; the face was angular, the nose narrow and aquiline, and the man’s jaw was set firmly above a crisp linen collar and neatly tied black stock. Despite an expression of firm purpose the rider seemed distracted, perhaps even fretful.
The boy cleared his throat and piped a bit too loudly, “Good morning, Your Excellency.”
At this, Philip Nolan’s face changed from a blank expression to a look of baffled curiosity. Nolan had hardly registered the oncoming wagon, and were it not for the good sense of his mount he might have ridden them both squarely between the mules. Collecting his reins, Nolan’s eyes searched the boy’s face; in an instant he determined that the officious greeting was not a jab. Nolan smiled, lifted his hat to father and son, and said pleasantly, “Good morning to you, gentlemen.”
They passed on the road, the wagon headed north to market and the waking town, horse and rider heading south to the plank bridge at Bloody Run. The mules capered a bit, and the farmer clucked at them. A mile back, where the river turned, a dozen other gentlemen had come together: men on horses, and men in a fine gilt coach. They had about them an expectant, furtive air, and had it not been for their elegant clothes and fine saddles they might have been mistaken for a gang of highwaymen. As the mules clopped past the yellow tavern, the boy could not help but look back; it was certain the officer was keeping a rendezvous. Father and son knew the infamy of the place where the men were gathered, a barren field marked by a lightning-stripped oak. The clearing was well known, even to local children, as the Bleedin’ Bones. That scrap of bleak, unhappy pasture was the place where Richmond’s gentlemen settled affairs of honor.
IN THE DAYS WHEN OUR REPUBLIC WAS YOUNG, AN OFFICER’S REPUTATION WAS a precious and fragile thing. A careless word, a deliberate bit of incivility, or even one’s choice of associates might give mortal offense. Immutable integrity, an urbanity of manners, and the practice of every commendable virtue were recommended in the finishing of an officer.
Personal honor was the foundation upon which two other great virtues were built: loyalty and duty to country. Philip Nolan’s upbringing, the station of his parents, his pleasant, forthright nature, and native honesty marked him as a person in whom trust and responsibility could safely be placed. His father was a military officer, a respected man; his mother a woman of grace and exquisite manners. Both cared for him and saw that he was given the advantages of an education, the comportment of a gentleman, and a modicum of plain good sense.
After graduation from West Point and a stint as an aide to General Henry Dearborn in Washington City, Philip Nolan was commissioned a second lieutenant of artillery and assigned to duty on the western frontier. Those who knew Nolan as a boy on the frontier, at university, as a cadet, and as an officer esteemed him as a person of determination and great promise. They might also have said that Philip Nolan was as proud as Beelzebub and as stubborn as a tenpenny nail. But these are minor defects in a lieutenant commanding a battery of horse artillery; and for a young officer in that station, pride and fortitude might even be pronounced virtues.
Philip Nolan first met Aaron Burr at Fort Massac on the Ohio River. That log-and-wattle fortress was then the United States’ outermost frontier station and the headquarters of what was styled the “Legion of the West.” The former vice president had arrived at the fort ostensibly on a tour of the Ohio country. He was, in fact, reconnoitering the men who garrisoned America’s western border. The staggering sum of eighteen million francs had recently purchased the Mississippi watershed from Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. The transaction had nearly doubled the landmass of the United States, but left the young American republic and the Empire of Spain to carp over the boundaries of an almost infinite wilderness.
After a staunchly patriotic banquet given in his honor, Aaron Burr sought a private word with Nolan. Burr made a point of learning about the persons who could be of use to him, and he’d made a careful study of Nolan. The young officer’s aptitude for languages, his ability with maps, and above all his family connexions made him an asset to be cultivated. Recently graduated from West Point, Nolan was the only trained artillerist and cartographer at the fort. Burr flattered him by saying he had seen several of Nolan’s maps at Washington City; why, in fact, he had one just at hand. Nolan bowed, and the small, keen, dapper little man rolled out a map of the Orleans Territory.
“I dare say you know this country, Mister Nolan, and the land west of the Sabine?”
“Well enough, sir.” Nolan answered, “My mother had a porcione.” He put four fingers on the map. “Here, near to Puebla Magda. I spent most of my boyhood there.”
“Texas,” Burr said, “should be a republic.”
“The King of Spain would disagree with you, sir.”
“Damn