NATHAN HALE'S FRIENDS
(1) _Rev. Joseph Huntington, D.D._
A somewhat full description of the Rev. Joseph Huntington, D.D., is well
worth placing among the friends of Nathan Hale. It was impossible for
such a boy as Nathan to have been under the care of such a man as Dr.
Huntington, first as pastor and then as his private teacher in his
preparation for college, without having been strongly influenced by him.
Indeed, scanning these old records of a parish of a hundred and fifty
years ago, we cannot help feeling a strong personal attraction toward
the Rev. Joseph Huntington.
Few men more fully prove the claim that many of the early New England
pastors were eminently fitted to lead their people heavenward and also
in the practical development of their daily lives.
Dr. Huntington lived a life evidently inspired by the finest ideals, and
also by shrewd common sense, always so dear to the heart of a New
Englander. It is a pleasure to recall the story of this man's useful
life, and realize that besides the reverence almost invariably accorded
to "the minister" in those days, he must have held the everyday
affection and wholesome trust of his people. Year by year he proved
himself not only their pastor, but a friend full of all kindly
sympathies, never above a hearty laugh when mirth was rampant, or a
sympathetic tear for hearts wrung with anguish.
He was born in Windham, Connecticut, in 1735. His ancestors came from
England about 1640 and the family ultimately settled in Windham. His
father, a man of somewhat arbitrary character, had determined that
Joseph should be a clothier, and forced him to remain in that business
until he was twenty-one. His intellectual ability was thought to be
somewhat remarkable, and his moral character so good that his pastor
advised him to begin a course of study for the ministry. He completed
his preparation for Yale College in an unusually short time, and was
graduated there in the year 1762.
His call to be settled over the First Church in Coventry was received so
soon after his graduation that we are forced to believe that his
theological course must have been brief. The parish in Coventry had
been greatly reduced in numbers. The meeting-house had been allowed to
go to decay, and the religious life of the parish was in a corresponding
state of depression. His ordination services were held out of
doors,--whether because the assemblage was too large for the church, or
because the building was too dilapidated, does not appear. The first
thing Mr. Huntington did after his settlement was to urge upon his
people the project of building a new meeting-house. They responded so
heartily that in a short time they had built the best church in the
whole region, having expended for it about five thousand dollars--a
large sum in those days.
Dr. Huntington does not appear to have been a laborious student. He had
few books of his own, largely depending upon borrowing. But he had a
remarkable memory and the power of so making his own whatever he read
that his scholarship and his originality appear never to have been
questioned. The Rev. Daniel Waldo says of him that he was rather above
the middle height, slender and graceful in form, and that he seemed to
have had an instinctive desire to make everybody around him happy. This,
added to his uniform politeness, caused him to be very popular in
general society.
The Rev. Mr. Waldo adds that Dr. Huntington was fond of pleasantry and
gives this instance:
A very dull preacher who had studied theology with him was invited by
his people to resign, and they paid him for his services chiefly in
copper coin. On telling Dr. Huntington how he had been paid, he was
advised to go back and preach a farewell sermon from the text,
"Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil." Many such anecdotes and
repartees of Dr. Huntington were current in Coventry for years after his
death.
This brief summary of Dr. Joseph Huntington's life shows that the men to
whom Richard Hale intrusted the preparation of his three sons for
entering Yale was not only a Christian, but a gentleman of the finest
culture. He was able not only to impart to Enoch, Nathan and David Hale
the rudiments of scholarship requisite for entering Yale, but to inspire
such boys with the keenest appreciation of courtesy, broad mental
endowments, and a wholesome zeal for high public service.
The correspondence concerning the Union School in New London shows that
Dr. Huntington gave Nathan Hale the necessary recommendation for the
place. It is on record in Hale's diary that on December 27, 1775, the
day after his arrival home from Camp Winter Hill, he visited Dr.
Huntington; and in one of his New York letters he wrote, "I always with
respect remember Mr. Huntington and shall write to him if time permits."
Admitting that Nathan Hale's father and mother were his most important
early friends, we believe that Dr. Huntington, as pastor, tutor, and
friend during the six years before Nathan entered college, may have
stood not far behind the parents in deep influence upon his
character--that splendid character, destined to be one of the beacon
lights of our country's history.
(2) _Alice Adams_
Studying the lives of the founders of our republic, we are interested in
noting the early marriages that so often occurred, and which seem to
have been justified by the early mental maturity of the young men and
women in the eighteenth century.
With early marriage, large families were the rule and not the exception;
and eulogize the forefathers of New England as much as one may, no one
at all familiar with the lives of the mothers of those generations can
question the share that the foremothers had in broadening the lives
and inspiring the characters of the husbands and sons in that early
period. Nathan Hale showed the power of heredity, and Alice Adams, the
woman he is said to have loved, proved well that she too had come of no
unworthy stock.
It has been given few women to be so worthily loved as was Alice Adams,
from the time we catch our first glimpse of her till the last, in her
eighty-ninth year. She was born in June, 1757. Her mother married Deacon
Hale when Alice was in her thirteenth year. We do not know when Alice
first met Nathan Hale; but we do know that while both were very young
they found out that they loved each other, and proceeded to engage
themselves without consulting their elders. Nathan had several years of
work preparatory to his profession still before him, and, acting as they
supposed in the best interests of both the boy and the girl, the mother
and elder sister Sarah promptly discouraged the engagement and it was
broken.
In February, 1773, while Nathan was still at Yale and before she was
sixteen, Alice was married to Elijah Ripley, a prosperous merchant at
Coventry. Within two years Mr. Ripley died, aged twenty-eight, leaving
behind him a little son, also named Elijah, who died in his second year.
After Mr. Ripley's death, Mrs. Ripley with her baby boy returned to
Deacon Hale's home almost as an adopted daughter, comfortably provided
for by the estate of her late husband. A member of the Hale family, she
must have seen that whatever was true of Nathan Hale in the days when
they were boy and girl together, he, now a Yale graduate and a man among
men, first as teacher and then as soldier, was even more worthy of her
love than in their early days. It is probable that they corresponded
more or less, though happily none of the letters of either are preserved
for the curious to delight in. All we know is that in December, 1775, a
year after her husband's death, Nathan Hale stopped in Coventry while
absent from camp on army business, and the broken engagement has been
said to have been then renewed, this time without opposition.
Having been married and widowed, and having lost her little son, Alice
Adams Ripley was now free to listen to the claims of the first love that
had entered her heart. What the few brief months that remained to Nathan
Hale must have meant to Alice Ripley, believing in him and caring for
him, only the noblest women can comprehend.
In regard to the letters written by Nathan Hale on the morning of his
execution, one of these letters is said to have been written to his
mother. One or two of his biographers have inferred that this must be an
error, and that it was written to his father or to a brother. With the
natural delicacy always so conspicuous in him, a letter to his
"mother," so called, in reality the mother of one whom we believe to
have been his betrothed wife, Alice Adams Ripley, who would show it to
Alice and undoubtedly give it to her, was probably what he would have
written. The others would know what he had written, but Alice Adams
would doubtless possess the letter.
Alice Adams was to live many, many years, to become one of the most
notable women in the city in which she dwelt; so honored that a copy of
her portrait has long hung in the Athenaeum, Hartford's finest shrine for
such portraits.
It was said of her that for several years after Nathan's death she had
no intention of marrying, but, after a widowhood of ten years,
events--some say changed circumstances--led her to accept an offer of
marriage from William Lawrence, of Hartford, which was thenceforth her
home. For many years she was naturally associated with the social life
of that city.
Whatever letters may have passed between Nathan Hale and Alice Adams
Ripley, no trace of them remains to-day. For this we can only be
grateful that, unlike other unfortunate lovers,--Robert Browning and
Elizabeth Barrett Browing, for instance,--not one word remains of their
correspondence. That belonged to him and to her alone. It is fortunate
that no mere curiosity hunter can feast his eyes or gossip over the
words these two people wrote to each other.
To Alice's husband Nathan's father gave the powder horn she once spoke
of as having seen Nathan working upon in his customary intense fashion,
"doing that one thing as if there was nothing else to be thought of at
that time." Its being given to Mr. Lawrence by Nathan's father, to whom
it must have been dear, proves that Mr. Lawrence, as well as his wife,
was a welcome addition to the Hale family. Mr. Lawrence in turn gave it
to his son William, and it is now treasured by the Connecticut
Historical Society.
Mrs. Lawrence lived well into the nineteenth century, dying in 1845, in
her eighty-ninth year. She was thoroughly appreciated in Hartford, but
it is from the pen of a granddaughter, in a note written to the Hon. I.
W. Stuart, that the best description of Mrs. Lawrence is given. Speaking
of her grandmother she said: "In person she was rather below the middle
height, with full, round figure, rather petite. She possessed a mild,
amiable countenance in which was reflected that intelligent superiority
which distinguished her even in the days of Dwight, Hopkins, and Barlow
in Hartford--men who could appreciate her, who delighted in her wit and
work, and who, with a coterie of others of that period who are still in
remembrance, considered her one of the brightest ornaments of their
society.
"A fair, fresh complexion ... bright, intelligent, hazel eyes, and hair
of a jetty blackness, will give you some idea of her looks--the crowning
glory of which was the forehead that surpassed in beauty any I ever saw,
and was the admiration of my mature years. I portray her, with the
exception of the hair, as she appeared to me in her eighty-eighth year.
I never tired of gazing on her youthful complexion--upon her eyes which
retained their youthful luster unimpaired, and enabled her to read
without any artificial aid; and upon her hand and arm, which, though
shrunken much from age, must in her younger days have been fit study for
a sculptor.
"Her character was everything that was lovely. A lady who had known her
many years, writing to me after her death, says, 'Never shall I forget
her unceasing kindness to me, and her noble and generous disposition.
From my first acquaintance with her, and amid all the varied trials
through which she was called to pass, I had ever occasion to admire the
calm and christian spirit she uniformly exhibited. To _you_ I will say
it, I never knew so faultless a character--so gentle, so kind. That
meek expression, that affectionate eye, are as present to my
recollection now as though I had seen them but yesterday.'
"Such is the language of one who had known her long and well and whose
testimony would be considered more impartial than that of one who like
myself had been the constant recipient of her unceasing kindness and
affection."
When she died, the story of the early home of the Hales found its
completion. Shall we pity them or congratulate them that in those long
ago days so many sorrows came to them?--testing their strength,
developing their faith, and fitting them, as their days went by, for
life and service beyond.
The following chivalric poem was written by Nathan Hale--perhaps in
camp. It expresses his mental as well as emotional appreciation of Alice
Adams. It is here given exactly as it appears in the original
manuscript, with almost no punctuation marks. It is probable that this
is a first rough draft, intended to be improved at some future time.
There are marks on the margin of the paper which show that the writer
had possible alterations in mind.
TO ALICIA
Alicia, born with every striking charm
The eye to ravish or the heart to warm
Fair in thy form, still fairer in thy mind
With beauty wisdom sense with sweetness join'd
Great without pride, & lovely without Art
Your looks good nature words good sense impart
Thus formed to charm Oh deign to hear my song
Whose best whose sweetest strains to you belong.
Let others toil amidst the lofty air
By fancy led through every cloud above
Let empty Follies build her castles there
My thoughts are settled on the friend I love.
Oh friend sincere of soul divinely great
Shedest thou for me a wretch the sorrowed tear
What thanks can I in this unhappy state
Return to you but Gratitude sincere
T'is friendship pure that now demand my lays
A theme sincere that Aid my feeble song
Raised by that theme I do not fear to praise
Since your the subject where due praise belong
Ah dearest girl in whom the gods have join'd
The real blessings, which themselves approve
Can mortals frown at such an heavenly mind
When Gods propitious shine on you they love
Far from the seat of pleasure now I roam
The pleasing landscape now no more I see
Yet absence ne'er shall take my thoughts from home
Nor time efface my due regards for thee.
(3) _Benjamin Tallmadge_
Benjamin Tallmadge, one year older than Nathan Hale, was Hale's
classmate and one of his correspondents. Like Hale he became a teacher
for a time, and then, entering the army, served with distinction
throughout the war. He was intrusted by Washington with important
services. In October, 1780, he was stationed with Col. Jameson at North
Castle. He had been out on active service against the enemy and returned
on the evening of the day when Major Andre had been brought there and
had been started back to Arnold for explanations. This was four years
after the death of Hale.
Listening to the account of the capture, and the pass from Arnold,
Tallmadge at once surmised the importance of retaining Andre and
insisted upon his being brought back.
When Andre was once more in American hands, Tallmadge is said to have
been the first to suspect, from the prisoner's deportment as he walked
to and fro and turned sharply upon his heel to retrace his steps, that
he was bred to arms and was an important British officer. Major
Tallmadge was charged with his custody, and was almost constantly with
him until his execution. Tallmadge writes: "Major Andre became very
inquisitive to know my opinion as to the result of his capture. In other
words, he wished me to give him candidly my opinion as to the light in
which he would be viewed by General Washington and a military tribunal
if one should be ordered.
"This was the most unpleasant question that had been propounded to me,
and I endeavored to evade it, unwilling to give him a true answer. When
I could no longer evade his importunity and put off a full reply, I
remarked to him as follows: 'I had a much loved classmate in Yale
College, by the name of Nathan Hale, who entered the army in the year
1775. Immediately after the battle of Long Island, General Washington
wanted information respecting the strength, position, and probable
movements of the enemy.
"'Captain Hale tendered his services, went over to Brooklyn, and was
taken just as he was passing the outposts of the enemy on his return.'
Said I with emphasis,
"'Do you remember the sequel of this story?'
"'Yes,' said Andre, 'he was hanged as a spy. But you surely do not
consider his case and mine alike?'
"I replied, 'Yes, precisely similar, and similar will be your fate.'
"He endeavored to answer my remarks, but it was manifest he was more
troubled in spirit than I had ever seen him before."
Major Tallmadge walked with Andre from the Stone House where he had
been confined to the place of execution, and parted with him under the
gallows, "overwhelmed with grief," he says, "that so gallant an officer
and so accomplished a gentleman should come to such an ignominious end."
What would have occurred if Andre had not been recalled, but had reached
Arnold--whether both could have escaped by boat to the _Vulture_ as did
Arnold; whether Arnold, leaving Andre to his fate, could have escaped
alone under these suspicious circumstances; or whether Hamilton and the
others, who were dining with Arnold when the news of Andre's capture
reached him, could have managed to hold both until Washington's arrival,
cannot now be surmised. We only know that to Major Tallmadge belongs the
credit of the recall and retention of Andre as a prisoner, thereby
preventing the loss of West Point.
Major Tallmadge remained in the army and was greatly trusted by
Washington, rendering important assistance in the secret service. He
took part in many battles and in time became a colonel. For sixteen
years he was in Congress. He died at the age of eighty, leaving sons and
grandsons who won honored names in various callings.
(4) _William Hull_
When Captain William Hull, impelled by a strong natural caution, spoke
as forcibly as he could of the disastrous results that might follow
Nathan Hale's acceptance of the office of a spy in his country's
service, he described not only the result of the failure which seemed
almost inevitable, and which would result in a disgraceful death, but
also the contempt that would be felt among his fellow-officers should he
be successful. Hale, as we have seen, deliberately chose these dangers
that appeared so appalling, and lost his life in the manner predicted by
Hull.
Could Captain Hull, on that September day in 1776, have looked forward
to other days in 1812, when, because of his surrender of Detroit, he
himself would stand as the most disgraced man in the American army, he
would have wondered what disastrous set of causes could have doomed him
to lower depths of discredit than he had imagined possible for his
friend Hale.
This is the story of Captain Hull as told by his grandson, the Rev.
James Freeman Clarke, a Unitarian clergyman, and an author of high
repute.
After remaining in the army throughout the Revolutionary War, where he
distinguished himself on repeated occasions, constantly rising in rank,
he settled in Massachusetts, practicing law, becoming prominent as a
legislator, and finally as one of the Massachusetts judges. In 1805, as
General Hull, he was appointed governor of the territory of Michigan by
President Jefferson, and removed thither, stipulating that in case of
war he should not be required to serve both as general and governor, as
he did not believe the duties of both could be successfully administered
by the same person.
The outbreak of the war of 1812, which occurred while Madison was
President, found what was then the northern frontier of America wholly
unprepared for hostilities. The country was new, with dense forests and
few roads. There were no adequate means of land defense, and no adequate
navy to patrol the lakes.
The British, as usual, had all the vessels needed, well-drilled
soldiers, and, more terrible than all, more than a thousand Indians,
ready to commit any atrocities upon defenseless white settlers. As Hull
had insisted, another officer was appointed to command the troops, such
as they were, but this officer became ill and Governor Hull was forced
to take command.
In the meantime, no amount of urgent entreaties could induce the
authorities at Washington to send reenforcements to the assistance of
the defenseless settlers. The American troops were unprepared to
maintain their own position, and absolutely unable to conquer and annex
Canada, as the government expected them to do. General Hull found
himself with some eight hundred men facing more than fifteen hundred
British regulars, and threatened in the rear by a thousand Indians.
What President Madison or any of his officers would have done, we cannot
say. They appear to have thought that it was General Hull's duty to
annihilate the British army, effectually dispose of the Indians, and
present Canada to the American government.
General Hull, however, was a practical soldier. He knew the fate that
would await the women and children in his territory, to say nothing of
his small army, if he risked a battle and was defeated, as he surely
would be; so he did what seemed to him the only possible thing to save
the people of Michigan. He surrendered. Canada remained unannexed; the
white settlers of Michigan were not delivered to the tender mercies of
the Indians, and General Hull paid the penalty of the independent stand
he had taken.
He probably foresaw that he must face a terrible ordeal. The whole
country appeared to be roused against him, and Hull at once became the
best-hated man in America. A court-martial was appointed.
At first it was hoped that he would be convicted of treason, but the
evidence showed that this charge could not be sustained. He was tried
for cowardice in face of the enemy, found guilty, and sentenced to be
shot. The latter part of the sentence President Madison remitted, in
consideration of his past eminent services in the army. So, stamped with
indelible disgrace by all who did not know the facts, a ruined and
dishonored man, in his sixty-first year General Hull went back to the
farm in Newton that had come to him through his wife. Here, surrounded
by the most devoted affection, he passed his few remaining years.
A ruined and discredited man he truly was,--the reputation and the honor
due him from his countrymen irrevocably lost and by no fault of his own.
Yet his grandson, the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, asserts that he was not
once heard to say an unkind word about the government that had treated
him so cruelly.
After his death, in 1825, one of his daughters wrote the story of his
life from his own writings, and the Rev. James Freeman Clarke sketched
for the world an outline of his grandfather's services in Michigan.
This shows that the man who, in his youth, tried to dissuade his friend
Nathan Hale from accepting the role of martyr, himself, in his old age,
bravely and gently endured a martyrdom compared to which the ostracism
he predicted for Hale, even if he succeeded in his mission, was but a
passing dream.
(5) _Stephen Hempstead_
To Stephen Hempstead, a sergeant in Nathan Hale's company in 1776, we
are indebted for the most reliable account that is known of Hale's
movements after he left New York in the service from which he was not to
return. Sergeant Hempstead removed to Missouri after the war, and this
account was first published in the _Missouri Republican_ in 1827. His
own words describing his last days with Hale are these:
"Captain Hale was one of the most accomplished officers, of his grade
and age, in the army. He was a native of the town of Coventry, state of
Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale College--young, brave,
honorable--and at the time of his death a Captain in Col. Webb's
Regiment of Continental Troops. Having never seen a circumstantial
account of his untimely and melancholy end, I will give it. I was
attached to his company and in his confidence. After the retreat of our
army from Long Island, he informed me, he was sent for to Head Quarters,
and was solicited to go over to Long Island to discover the disposition
of the enemy's camps, &c., expecting them to attack New York, but that
he was too unwell to go, not having recovered from a recent illness;
that upon a second application he had consented to go, and said I must
go as far with him as I could, with safety, and wait for his return.
"Accordingly, we left our Camp on Harlem Heights, with the intention of
crossing over the first opportunity; but none offered until we arrived
at Norwalk, fifty miles from New York. In that harbor there was an armed
sloop and one or two row galleys. Capt. Hale had a general order to all
armed vessels, to take him to any place he should designate: he was set
across the Sound, in the sloop, at Huntington (Long Island) by Capt.
Pond, who commanded the vessel. Capt. Hale had changed his uniform for a
plain suit of citizen's brown clothes, with a round broad-brimmed hat,
assuming the character of a Dutch schoolmaster, leaving all his other
clothes, commission, public and private papers, with me, and also his
silver shoebuckles, saying they would not comport with his character of
schoolmaster, and retaining nothing but his College diploma, as an
introduction to his assumed calling. Thus equipped, we parted for the
last time in life. He went on his mission, and I returned back again to
Norwalk, with orders to stop there until he should return, or hear from
him, as he expected to return back again to cross the sound, if he
succeeded in his object."
So far as there is any other evidence, it tends to confirm this part of
Sergeant Hempstead's report, and he is to-day considered one of the most
valuable authorities on Hale's last intercourse with brother soldiers.
Of the details of his captain's arrest and execution, which are told in
the last part of the account, and of which Hempstead had no personal
knowledge, he declares that he was "authentically informed" and did
"most religiously believe" them. Some of the incidents he gives appear
to have been proved since to have no basis in fact; others that vary
from reports now accepted may yet, with more light gained, be found to
be true.
The second letter sent by Sergeant Hempstead to the _Republican_ deals
with his experience in the army in 1781, when he was one of the victims
of the brutalities inflicted upon the hapless prisoners of war at Fort
Griswold, Groton, Connecticut. The injuries he received there were, as
he tells us, so severe that his own wife, having searched for his body
in the fort among the dead, scanned carefully the face of every wounded
soldier sheltered by pitying neighbors, passing him twice without
recognizing him--he too ill to make any sign--and then resuming her
search among the dead.
Later she found him, and after a time he regained sufficient strength to
be carried to his home. He was, however, incapacitated by his injuries
for service in the field, and was thenceforth able to perform only
duties calling for honest watchfulness rather than personal labor. After
the removal to Missouri the whole family prospered greatly. He settled
on a farm near the city of St. Louis, where he lived many years,
respected by all who knew him. He died in 1831.
(6) _Asher Wright_
Near the place where the Hale family lie buried is another grave
covering the dust of Asher Wright, once Nathan Hale's attendant. He was
so strongly attached to Hale that his tragic death is thought to have
unsettled his mind so that he never was quite himself again, and never
able to earn his own living. For several years after Nathan Hale's death
Wright was not heard of in his early home. Then he came back to
Coventry, bringing with him some of Nathan Hale's effects that he had
doubtless carried with him in his wandering, giving them, on his return,
to Deacon Hale's family.
Asher Wright died in his ninetieth year, having lived all his later days
in his house not far from the Hale home. His pension of ninety-six
dollars a year was so supplemented by the Hale family, and by David Hale
of New York, editor of the _Journal of Commerce_, that his last days
were very comfortable. His grave is marked by a marble headstone giving
his name, age, and former connection with Nathan Hale.
His farm adjoined that of the Hale homestead and has now become a part
of it.
(7) _Elisha Bostwick_
One letter concerning Nathan Hale comes to us with a curious and
interesting history.
Not long ago, while in the city of Washington, a loyal friend and warm
admirer of Nathan Hale, George Dudley Seymour, Esq., of New Haven, had
his attention called to a remarkable tribute to Hale. It proved to have
been written by a fellow-soldier in the Revolutionary War, Captain
Elisha Bostwick. This remarkable document was found in the musty records
of a very old pension list, and the portion relating to Nathan Hale is
here given. It came to light a hundred and thirty-five years after
Hale's execution. We give this valuable record of Captain Bostwick's as
it appeared in the _Hartford Courant_ of December 15th, 1914:
"I will now make some observations upon the amiable & unfortunate Capt.
Nathan Hale whose fate is so well known; for I was with him in the same
Regt. both at Boston & New York & until the day of his tragical death; &
although of inferior grade in office was always in the habits of
friendship & intimacy with him: & my remembrance of his person, manners
& character is so perfect that I feel inclined to make some remarks upon
them: for I can now in imagination see his person & hear his voice--his
person I should say was a little above the common stature in height, his
shoulders of a moderate breadth, his limbs strait & very plump: regular
features--very fair skin--blue eyes--flaxen or very light hair which was
always kept short--his eyebrows a shade darker than his hair & his voice
rather sharp or Piercing--his bodily agility was remarkable. I have seen
him follow a football & kick it over the tops of the trees in the Bowery
at New York (an exercise which he was fond of)--his mental powers seemed
to be above the common sort--his mind of a sedate and sober cast, & he
was undoubtedly Pious; for it was remarked that when any of the soldiers
of his company were sick he always visited them & usually prayed for &
with them in their sickness.--A little anecdote I will relate; one day
he accidentally came across some of his men in a bye place playing
cards--he spoke--what are you doing--this won't do,--give me your cards,
they did so, & he chopd them to pieces, & it was done in such a manner
that the men were rather pleased than otherwise--his activity on all
occasions was wonderful--he would make a pen the quickest & best of any
man--
"Innumerable instances of occurrences which took place in the Army I
could relate, but who would care for them: Perhaps it may be thought by
some that I have already been at the expense of Prolixity. Nobody in
these days feels as I do, left here alone, & they cannot if they would,
but to me it is a melancholy pleasure to go back to those Scenes of fear
& anguish & after the laps of 50 years (1826 was in my 78th year) to
rumenate upon them which I think I can do with as bright a recollection
as though they were present--One more reflection I will make--why is it
that the delicious Capt. Hale should be left & lost in an unknown grave
& forgotten!--
"The foregoing Statements were made from Memory & recollection & from
documents & Memorandoms which I kept.--ELISHA BOSTWICK."
(8) _Edward Everett Hale_
Of the subsequent records of the Hale family no trace remains that is
not honorable. Nathan's brother Enoch was settled at Westhampton,
Massachusetts, in 1777, where he remained a useful and beloved pastor
for sixty years. Enoch's eldest son, Nathan, graduated at Williams
College in 1804. He was editor-in-chief of the _Boston Daily Advertiser_
for more than forty years. Nathan's son, Nathan, a Havard graduate,
became associate editor of the _Boston Advertiser_.
Lucretia Peabody Hale, a well-known writer in her day, whose delightful
and amusing "Peterkin Papers" are still read and remembered, was a
granddaughter of the Rev. Enoch Hale.
Edward Everett Hale, a man beloved by every one who knew him, was the
son of "a great journalist," Nathan, grandson of Enoch, and therefore
grandnephew of Captain Nathan Hale. He, too, had a son Nathan who died
in his early manhood. Edward Everett Hale was one of the most commanding
and admired of men, with rare endowments as clergyman, author, editor,
and patriot.
Those interested in the study of his granduncle, Nathan, owe to him the
preservation of many records of the Hale family, and an arrangement of
the genealogy of the Hale family, made while he was a Unitarian minister
in Worcester, Massachusetts, and kindly lent to the Hon. I. W. Stuart,
one of Hale's early biographers.
It will be long before some of Edward Everett Hale's vital words are
forgotten; longer still before his marvelous story, "The Man Without a
Country," shall cease to thrill its readers.
The impassioned sentences in which he cites its unhappy hero as speaking
to a boy--a midshipman--while under heavy stress, read, "For your
country, boy, and for your flag, never dream a dream but of serving her
as she bids you, though the service carry you through a thousand hells.
No matter what happens to you, no matter who flatters you or who abuses
you, never look at another flag, never let a night pass but you pray God
to bless that flag. Remember, boy, that behind all these men you have to
do with, 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."
No one justly comprehending the bed rock of Edward Everett Hale's
boundless patriotism can doubt that if the same call of duty had come
to him that came in bygone days to his relative, young Nathan Hale, he
would have done exactly as Nathan Hale did. That call did not come, but
to the end of his days Edward Everett Hale lived for his country as
nobly as Nathan Hale died for it.