The protagonist of the story is a young
United States Army lieutenant named Philip Nolan, who develops a friendship with the visiting
Aaron Burr. When Burr is tried for
treason (historically this occurred in 1807), Nolan is tried as an accomplice. During his testimony, Nolan bitterly renounces his nation, angrily shouting "Damn the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States again!" Upon conviction, the judge icily grants Nolan his wish: he is to spend the rest of his life on warships of the United States Navy, in exile, with no right ever again to set foot on U.S. soil, and with explicit orders that no one shall ever mention his country to him again.
The sentence is carried out to the letter. For the rest of his life, Nolan is transported from ship to ship, living out his life as a prisoner on the high seas, never once being allowed back in a home port. None of the sailors in whose custody Nolan remains are allowed to speak to him about the U.S., and his newspapers are censored. Nolan is unrepentant at first, but over the years becomes sadder and wiser, and desperate for news. One day he says to a young officer, as he is being rowed over to another ship on which he is to be held, he beseeches a young sailor never to make the same mistake he made, and to: "Remember, boy, that behind all these men..., behind officers and government, and people even, there is the Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong to her as you belong to your own mother. Stand by her, boy, as you would stand by your mother...!"
Deprived of a homeland, Nolan slowly and painfully learns the true worth of his country. He misses it more than his friends or family, more than art or music or love or nature. Without it, he is nothing. Dying, he shows his room to an officer named Danforth; it is "a little shrine" of
patriotism. The
Stars and Stripes are draped around a picture of
George Washington. Over his bed, Nolan has painted an
eagle, with lightning "blazing from his beak" and claws grasping the globe. At the foot of his bed is a dated map of the old territories. Nolan smiles, "Here, you see, I have a country!" Nolan dies content after Danforth finally tells him all that has happened to the U.S. since his sentence was imposed. Nolan asks him to have them bury him in the sea and have a gravestone placed in memory of him, at Fort Adams or at Orleans.
