"Friday 29th (Sept.)--Marched for Cambridge. Arrived 3 o'clock,
and encamped on the foot of Winter Hill.
"Sat. 30th--Considerable firing upon Roxbury side in the
forenoon.
"October 9th, Monday--Morning clear and pleasant but cold.
Exercised men 5 o'clock, one hour.
"Sabbath, 22d--Mounted picket guard. Had charge of the advance
picket.
"Monday 6th (November)--It is of the utmost importance that an
officer should be anxious to know his duty, but of greater that
he should carefully perform what he does know.
"Tuesday, 7th--Left picket 10 o'clock.... Rain pretty hard most
of the day. Studied the best method of forming a regiment for a
review, manner of arranging the companies, also of marching round
the reviewing officer.
"A man ought never to lose a moment's time. If he put off a thing
from one minute to the next his reluctance is but increased.
"Wednesday, 8th--Cleaned my gun, played some football and some
checkers.
"22d, Friday--Some shot from the enemy.
"Feb. 14, 1776, Wednesday--Last night a party of Regulars made an
attempt upon Dorchester.... The Guard house was set on fire but
extinguished."
During this time many of the soldiers became discouraged with the
hard work and poor food and pay, and we learn from his diary that
Captain Hale offered to give the men in his company his own pay
if they would stay on for a month longer. The diary and all his
letters are full of courage and hopefulness.
In March, the British army, which had been shut up so long in
Boston unable to get away by land, took ship and sailed for
Halifax. Washington believed the next point of attack would be
New York and he moved his army there to protect the city. So
Hale's regiment marched back to New London and embarked in
transports for New York. The last six months of his short life
were passed in and near New York.
The spring was spent in fortifying the city, and in June Captain
Hale wrote to his brother Enoch, "The army is every day improving
in discipline and it is hoped will soon be strong enough to meet
the enemy at any kind of play. My company, which was small at
first, is increased to eighty, and a sergeant is recruiting, who
I hope has got the other ten which completes the company."
When the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed, the soldiers
received the news with great enthusiasm, and felt that they had
at last an independent country of their own to fight for and, if
need be, to die for.
The British army arrived and encamped on Staten Island. It was a
finely equipped force of twenty-five thousand men with a fleet of
ships to support it, and was in every respect better and stronger
than the half-trained militia that made up most of the American
army. The battle of Long Island, late in the summer, ended in a
defeat for the Americans, and Washington's skillful retreat at
night across the East River from Long Island to New York was all
that prevented a greater disaster. Many of the men in Captain
Hale's company had been recruited along the Connecticut shores,
and there is no doubt that these sailors under his command were
very useful that night in getting the troops safely back to New
York.
After this the condition of things became very serious, for the
British had got possession of Brooklyn Heights, which commanded
the city over East River, and they might cross at any time and
attack it. Washington ordered companies of rangers, or scouts, to
be formed to keep a sharp watch on the enemy's movements, and
Captain Hale accepted an appointment in this body of picked men.
It was commanded by Colonel Knowlton, who was also a Connecticut
man and had been a ranger himself in the old French-and-Indian
War. He was a brave officer, and when he lay dying in the battle
of Harlem Heights he said, "I do not value my life if we do but
get the day." Captain Hale must have been glad to serve under
such a leader.
Meanwhile, Washington had moved the greater part of his army
outside New York to avoid being shut up in the city as the
British had been in Boston, and was anxiously expecting an
attack. But none came, and his suspense grew greater and greater
as time passed and he got no information as to what would happen.
"Everything depends on obtaining intelligence of the enemy's
motions," he wrote to his officers, "I was never more uneasy than
on account of my want of knowledge," and he begged them to send
some one into the enemy's camp in disguise to find out what their
plans were, and when and where they would attack.
It was not easy to get any one to go, for it meant being a spy.
Spies are necessary in all wars because the commanding general
must have information about the enemy's movements. But soldiers
hate a spy, who comes into their camp as a friend when he is
really an enemy, and honorable men do not like to do this. It is
usually done by men who care most of all for the money it brings.
The service, too, is so dangerous that the general may not
command it, he may only accept it when it is volunteered. If a
spy is caught within the enemy's lines no mercy is shown him; his
trial is swift and his death certain; in those days the penalty
was hanging.
This time a man of intelligence was needed and Colonel Knowlton
explained the matter to some of his officers. One of them is said
to have replied: "I am willing to be shot, but not to be hung."
But there was another who looked at it differently, and this was
Captain Nathan Hale. It seemed to him that if his country called
it was his duty to go, at the sacrifice, if necessary, of both
his honor and his life. And the more he thought of it the more
sure he was that it is the motive with which a deed is done that
makes it good or evil, and that a service which his country
demanded could not be dishonorable.
He asked advice from his friends, especially from Captain William
Hull, of his old regiment, who had also been one of his fellow
students at college. Captain Hull urged him strongly not to do
it. He reminded him how men feel about a spy and told him, too,
that it was doubtful if, with his frank, open character, he could
ever succeed in deceiving people and pretending to be what he was
not. He begged him for the sake of his family and his friends to
give it up because it might end for him in a disgraceful death.
Captain Hale replied, "I am fully sensible of the consequences of
discovery and capture in such a situation. But for a year I have
been in the army and have not rendered any material service while
receiving a compensation for which I make no return. Yet I am not
influenced by the hope of promotion or reward. I wish to be
useful, and every kind of service necessary to the public good
becomes honorable by being necessary. But," he added, taking his
friend's hand affectionately, "I will reflect, and do nothing but
what duty demands."
He decided to go, and left the American camp the second week in
September. He was to cross to Long Island and approach the
British position from the rear, and he was to go as a schoolmaster
looking for employment, which was the best disguise he could
assume as he had once been a schoolmaster and might easily pass
for one again. Just what his orders and instructions were we do
not know, as the service was a secret one.
His faithful sergeant, Stephen Hempstead, of New London, went
with him part of the way. On account of British ships cruising in
the East Elver and in the Sound, they were obliged to go as far
as Norwalk, Connecticut, before it was safe to cross. Hempstead
tells us that at Norwalk Captain Hale changed his uniform for a
plain suit of citizen's brown clothes, with a round, broad-brimmed
hat, took off his silver shoe-buckles, and left all his
papers behind except his college diploma, which he thought might
be useful. Then he said good-bye to Hempstead, telling him to
wait for him there, and an armed sloop commanded by Captain
Pond--probably Charles Pond, of Milford, a fellow officer in
Hale's regiment--carried him over to Huntington on Long Island.
Hempstead waited, but Captain Hale never returned. The next news
his friends received was the news of his capture and execution as
a spy in the British camp.
We shall probably never know just what happened after he left
Huntington, what adventures he met with or what narrow escapes he
had. About the time that he crossed the Sound, Sir William Howe,
the British general, moved over to New York and took possession
of the city, and Washington's suspense ended. Perhaps Captain
Hale did not learn of this until it was too late to return, or,
perhaps, knowing it, he chose to go on and finish the work he had
begun and take back information of the new position of the enemy.
We know that he passed safely all through the British camps, both
on Long Island and in New York, that he did his work thoroughly
and well, made plans and drawings of the new fortifications in
the city, and was only arrested on the last night, when the work
was done and he was ready to return. Just where he was when he
was captured we do not know. From the new line of intrenchments
made by the British across the city he could have looked
northward over to the American camp on Harlem Heights, scarcely a
mile away, and could almost have seen the tents of his own
company of rangers. Perhaps he made a quick dash for freedom
across this short mile and was seized then. Or, perhaps, in the
excitement of a great fire which raged all through the lower part
of New York City on that day, he may have got safely back to Long
Island and have been arrested as he tried to pass the sentries on
the outposts. An old tradition says that he had gone as far as
Huntington and was taken there. We cannot tell. But just as the
difficult task was over, the sudden disappointment came.
The papers and drawings found on him told the story only too
plainly, and he was carried before Sir William Howe. When he was
questioned he at once gave his name, his rank in the American
army, and his reasons for coming inside the British lines. No
trial was necessary, and General Howe immediately signed the
warrant for his execution on the next morning, Sunday, September
22, at eleven o'clock.
He was handed over to the provost marshal, William Cunningham, a
coarse and brutal man who has left a shocking record of cruelty
to his prisoners. Hale asked if he might have a minister with
him, but Cunningham refused. Then he asked for a Bible, but that,
too, was forbidden. How he spent the night we cannot tell; part
of it, no doubt, in prayer, for that was the habit of his life.
He could not want to die. He was young and strong, just twenty-one,
hardly more than a boy, and life was all before him. He had
friends who loved him; he was engaged to be married; he had every
prospect of success and happiness. But he had deliberately
counted the cost before he undertook the dangerous service, and
the training of all his life, at home, at college, and in the
army, had taught him not only to do and to dare, but, what is
better still, to accept defeat bravely.
The next morning, while the last fatal preparations were being
made, an aide-de-camp of General Howe's, a brave officer of
Engineers who was stationed near the place, asked that the
prisoner be allowed to wait in his tent. "Captain Hale entered,"
he says; "he was calm and bore himself with gentle dignity in the
consciousness of rectitude and high intentions. He asked for
writing materials, which I furnished him; he wrote two letters,
one to his mother, and one to a brother officer."
These letters Cunningham destroyed, saying that "the rebels
should never know they had a man who could die with so much
firmness."
There were few people present at his death. When he reached the
foot of the tree where the sentence was to be executed, he was
asked if he had anything to say, any confession to make. He told
again who he was and why he came, and added quietly, "I only
regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." Then the
noose was adjusted, and the cruel end came quickly.
These last words of Nathan Hale have been repeated again and
again since that time. They have been cut in bronze and in
marble, they have been taught in our schools. They are noble
words, because they are simple and brave and unselfish. He could
have had no idea that they would ever be heard beyond the little
group of people about him when he died, but it so happened that
General Howe had occasion to send a letter to Washington late
that evening about an exchange of prisoners, and the bearer of
the letter was Captain Montresor, the officer in whose tent
Nathan Hale had spent the last hour of his life. Inside the
American tines Montresor met Captain Hull, Hale's intimate
friend, the man who had warned Hale so earnestly of the fate that
might be his. To him Montresor told the tragic story of that
morning and repeated the words that have since become famous.
[Illustration: _Courtesy of Mr. George D. Seymour_