Nathan Hale's Patriotic Sacrifice (22 SEP 1776)

Photo By Erin Thompson | Bela Lyon Pratt’s statue of Nathan Hale on the Yale Campus (Photographer: Christopher De Coro)  

UNITED STATES

09.19.2025

Courtesy Story

U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence

by Michael E. Bigelow, INSCOM Command Historian

NATHAN HALE'S PATRIOTIC SACRIFICE
On Sep. 22, 1776, the British executed 21-year-old Nathan Hale as a spy in New York City. Although Hale’s mission failed and ended in his death, he serves as an example of selfless sacrifice in the service of his country.

When the fighting between the American colonists and British broke out in the spring of 1775, Hale was a schoolteacher and member of the local militia in his home state of Connecticut. Upon the urging of his friend and Yale classmate, Benjamin Tallmadge, Hale joined Col. Charles Webb’s 7th Connecticut of the Continental Army as a first lieutenant. By the end of July, Webb’s regiment had joined General George Washington’s army besieging Boston. In the spring of 1776, it moved to New York and assumed defensive positions. For the Battle of Long Island, Hale and the rest of Webb’s men were in reserve positions and saw little action.

Hale transferred to Knowlton’s Rangers in late summer of 1776. Under Lt. Col. Thomas Knowlton, this outfit trained for special scouting missions. In early September, now-Captain Hale led a ranger company to reconnoiter positions in upper Manhattan. Again, he saw no fighting. Perhaps frustrated by this lack of action, he volunteered when General Washington asked for someone to spy behind enemy lines. The American commander desperately needed intelligence on when and where the British would launch their attack on Manhattan. As a friend later related, Hale agreed spying was not an honorable undertaking, but “if the exigencies of my country demand a peculiar service…to perform that service is [imperative].”

The young captain met with Washington twice to discuss the mission. Instead of crossing from Manhattan directly to Long Island, Hale would head from Connecticut to a point east of the British positions in Brooklyn. From there, he would move west to observe the enemy as they mustered for the attack. Leaving the American camp, Hale travelled to Norwalk, Connecticut, and gained passage onboard Capt. Charles Pond’s sloop, the Schuyler. On the early morning hours of Sep. 17, Hale rowed ashore near Huntington, New York.

Now the Connecticut Yankee—disguised as a New York teacher—found himself in enemy-occupied territory. Unfortunately, two days earlier, the British had already landed on Manhattan: the reason for Hale’s mission had disappeared. As soon as he learned this, Hale might have chosen to return to American lines as soon as possible. Instead, he decided to hurry west towards Brooklyn and gather as much information as he could along the way, and then try to reach the American lines. In his hurry, Hale got careless. He spent too much time in the open and asked too many impertinent questions of the locals. This left Hale, who was tall and handsome, an easy mark for any suspicious loyalist.

Soon the news of a suspected rebel wearing a brown suit and impersonating a New York schoolmaster came to the attention of Lt. Col. Robert Rogers, the loyalist commander of the Queen’s American Rangers. By Sep. 19, Rogers intercepted Hale along the coastal road near Flushing. After watching the American spy, the loyalist commander set a trap for Hale on Sep. 20 and arrested him the next day. By that evening, Rogers had delivered Hale to the British headquarters, now on Manhattan.

Once captured, Hale’s execution for spying was a foregone conclusion. Taken in civilian clothes behind enemy lines with incriminating documents, the American openly admitted he was an officer in the Continental Army, working under Washington’s order. The next morning, he was taken to the artillery park, near what is now Third Avenue and 66th Street, to be hanged. There, a noose had been thrown over a tree’s branch. With his hands pinioned behind his back, Hale climbed the ladder that would be kicked away for the drop.

At the top, Hale was permitted the traditional last words. Most likely, he did not utter the famous “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” Instead, Lt. Frederick MacKensie, a British officer in New York at the time, noted in his diary for Sep. 22 that Hale,

"a Lieutenant in the Rebel Army, and a native of Connecticut, was apprehended as a Spy… He behaved with great composure and resolution, saying he thought it the duty of every good officer, to obey any orders given him by his commander in chief; and desired the spectators to be at all times prepared to meet death in whatever shape it might appear."


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• Date Taken: 09.19.2025
• Date Posted: 09.19.2025 16:22
• Story ID: 548798
• Location: US