Posted on 06/14/2020 12:33:55 AM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com
A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
Nolan was proved guilty enough. He cried out, in a fit of frenzy,— "D——n the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States again!"
I suppose he did not know how the words shocked old Colonel Morgan, who was holding the court. Half the officers who sat in it had served through the Revolution, and their lives, not to say their necks, had been risked for the very idea which he so cavalierly cursed in his madness. He, on his part, had grown up in the West of those days, in the midst of "Spanish plot," "Orleans plot," and all the rest.
He [NOLAN]had been educated on a plantation, where the finest company was a Spanish officer or a French merchant from Orleans. His education, such as it was, had been perfected in commercial expeditions to Vera Cruz, and I think he told me his father once hired an Englishman to be a private tutor for a winter on the plantation. He had spent half his youth with an older brother, hunting horses in Texas; and, in a word, to him "United States" was scarcely a reality.
Yet he had been fed by "United States" for all the years since he had been in the army. He had sworn on his faith as a Christian to be true to "United States." It was "United States" which gave him the uniform he wore, and the sword by his side.
Old Morgan, was terribly shocked. If Nolan had compared George Washington to Benedict Arnold, or had cried, "God save King George,"Prisoner, hear the sentence of the Court. The Court decides, subject to the approval of the President, that you never hear the name of the United States again."
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
'ATLANTA' USED PORTRAIT OF: David Dixon Porter directed the Union’s Mississippi Squadron and was instrumental in the siege at Vicksburg, which broke Confederate control of the river. In this Alexander Gardner photograph, he poses aboard his ship, the Malvern.
I can’t recall what grade I was in when we learned about this, but it’s something that has stuck with me for about 60 years. At that time, it seemed to be the worst thing that possibly happen to a person.
ERROR
The Atlantic Magazine not Atlanta used portrait as illustration for ‘The man without a country’
** This portrait used by ‘The Atlantic Magazine’ for illustration is Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter. He came from a naval family and became a midshipman in 1829, serving in a variety of theaters, including the Mediterranean. Service in the peacetime military was slow, boring, and devoid of opportunities to make one’s mark.
Porter did well in the Mexican American War, obtaining a bigger command and a promotion, but afterward military service resumed its slow pace. Galvanized by the outbreak of the Civil War, Porter devised a plan to resupply the federal forts in Florida and then spearheaded the naval assault on New Orleans.
He was also singularly successful in the combined operation—commanded by Ulysses Grant on land—to take Vicksburg. Thereafter, Porter had few opportunities to shine, and combined Union navy-army operations off North Carolina were not distinguished.
Porter saw out the end of the war on his flagship anchored in the James River, as photographer Gardner pictured him here.
My WWII vet Dad first told me of “The man without a Country”
Read this in eighth grade and it’s always stuck with me.
Found that book on the shelves when I was about 10 - story always fascinated me.
Ping
Same here. I’m 65. I remember that story as well, and I never, ever forgot it. It struck a cord with me, even as an 11 or 12 year old.
I’ll have to see if I can find that video anywhere. Although with the snowflakes, Antifa, etc., banning pro-American things, it may be missing forever.
I saw the movie and the scene of how the country had grown by the shape cut out of books and atlases stuck with me
Breathes there a man with heart so cold that he may read this without a tear in his eye? For that man is surely dead.
Never heard this story...sounds interesting.Gotta check it out when I have time.
I recall this bit of history from reading a book I found in the elementary school library, of all places.
Back then, there were small condensed books about history’s characters.
Wow.
I would be stunned if one child out of 500 would know this story, in this day and age.
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