In 1841, with the rank of lieutenant, Nicolay was transferred to the Black Sea Fleet, which found a patron in the person of Admiral Mikhail Lazarev.
In 1842, Nicolay was in international voyages in the Mediterranean Sea in the crew of the corvette "Andromache", and in 1844, leaving the naval service, joined the military land designation in Dragoon Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich regiment with the rank of lieutenant, but soon entered in the General Staff Academy (Imperial Russia), where he graduated from the course in 1846.
This break occurred in 1849 as a result of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, when Nicolay was appointed to consist in the main headquarters of Field Marshal Ivan Paskevich, and then to the rank of adjutant was from 1849 to 1850 in Vologda Governorate, where he was charged with monitoring the recruitments.
In recompense of these great feats of courage and bravery, rendered in 1853 in the cases against the Highlanders, and especially for the difference extended to the 17th of February in the assault and capture of the enemy's position on heavily fortified river Mechik on 3 October 1854 Baron Nicolay, with 6 companies of managed to break under the His-sous many thousands of Imam Shamil, who tried to invade the Kumyk plane on 6 December of the same year made a major general in the suite with the appointment of His Majesty.
In 1868 Baron Nicolay became a monk[1] of the Order of Carthusians by the name of Jean-Louis, shorn in the monastery of the Grande Chartreuse, near Grenoble in France, where he died on January 21 ( February 2 new style) 1891.