The Man Without a Country

"The Man Without a Country" first appeared in the Atlantic Monthlyfor December, 1863. It was the author's wish that it be published anonymously, in the hope that it might be ascribed to some officer of the Navy; but unfortunately, the man who compiled the year's index for the magazine, which was mailed with the December number, recognized Dr. Hale's handwriting, and gave him credit for it in the index.

The story was written during the darkest period of the Civil War, and this war is perhaps the gloomiest period in the history of our great republic in the history of our great Republic; it was written at a time when one-half of the people in the United States were burning with patriotism, and were ready to lay down their lives to preserve the Union, while the other half were striving to disrupt what to them was merely a confederation of States, in no wise binding, and were damning the United States, even as did Philip Nolan; at at time when the President was bending low under the weight of sorrow for the loss of thousands of noble men who were falling in battle, and was enduring in pitiful silence the villification that was heaped upon him.