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Nathan Hale (June 6, 1755 -
September 22, 1776) was an American army officer during the Revolution.
Hale was born in Coventry, Connecticut and attended
Yale College, graduating in 1773. He taught school thereafter until
the war began. In July 1775 he was given a lieutenant's commission in the Connecticut militia, but soon afterward joined the regular Continental Army.
After having participated in the Siege of Boston, Hale was
promoted to captain and in March 1776 commanded a small unit of Rangers in the
defense of New York City, which rescued a ship full of provisions from
the guard of a British man-of-war.
In September of that year Hale volunteered for an intelligence-gathering mission in Long Island, which was at that time behind enemy lines. He disguised himself as a Dutch schoolteacher, and
after having successfully gathered the information required by the mission he was apprehended while returning to his regiment on
Manhattan Island on September 21.
British Gen. Sir William Howe ordered that he be hanged for espionage
the following day. He was allowed to give a speech from the gallows, part of which, according to tradition, included the words "I
only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."
No official records of any sort having been kept of Hale's speech, it is impossible to verify that he actually delivered this
memorable line; however rumor of it subsequently spread throughout the colonies, making a martyr of Hale and boosting morale for
the revolutionaries.
No authentic likeness exists. The square-jaws image of an idealized Nathan Hale has been established by the memorial statue by
Frederick William Macmonnies that was
erected in 1890 at the site in City Hall Park (Broadway at Murray Street) in New York City upon which Hale was executed. (Copies exist in several museums).Hale is currently buried in
Coventry, Connecticut
A statue of Nathan Hale, sculpted around 1898 by Bela Lyon Pratt, was cast in 1912 and stands in front of Connecticut Hall at Hale's alma mater, Yale.
Copies of this sculpture stand at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, the Nathan Hale Homestead, the
Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and at the
headquarters of the Central Intelligence
Agency.
The United States Navy submarine USS Nathan
Hale (SSBN-623) was named in his honor.
"...but one life to lose..." Nathan Hale's famous quote was a recasting of a famous line from Joseph Addison's noble tragedy on Roman themes, Cato (premiered 1713): "What pity is it That we can die but once to
save our country!" (Act IV, scene 4). Addison's Cato was favorite reading of George Washington. As a schoolteacher, Hale
must have heard this speech declaimed on more than one occasion.
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