Then the young midshipman redrew the map and tried to tell all that had happened to our great and growing country in fifty years. Only he could not wound his friend by mentioning the Civil War.
Nolan drank it all in and enjoyed it more than we can tell. After that he seemed to grow weary and asked for his Bible, telling Danforth to look in it after he was gone. This is the text he had marked: “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 a 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.”
AMERICA, MY HOMELAND
There’s no place like my homeland,
Dear land of liberty,
Where all mankind are equal,