Nathan Hale

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This Day in History

May 27

American Revolution

Thomas Jefferson writes to John Adams, 1813

On this day in 1813, former President Thomas Jefferson writes former President John Adams to let him know that their mutual friend, Dr. Benjamin Rush, has…

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(Born June 6, 1755, Coventry, Conn. [U.S.]—died Sept. 22, 1776, Manhattan Island, N.Y.) American Revolutionary officer who attempted to spy on the British and was hanged.

He attended Yale University, where he graduated in 1773, and became a schoolteacher, first in East Haddam and then in New London. He joined a Connecticut regiment in 1775, served in the siege of Boston, and was commissioned a captain (1776). He went to New York with William Heath's brigade and is said to have participated in the capture of a provision sloop from under the guns of a British man-of-war. Hale was captured on Sept. 21, 1776, by the British while attempting to return to his regiment, having penetrated the British lines on Long Island to obtain information. He was hanged without trial the next day.

Hale is regarded by American Revolutionary tradition as a hero and a martyr. He is supposed to have said before his death, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,” a remark similar to one in Joseph Addison's play Cato. In the diary entry of one of the British officers made on the day of Hale's execution, it was said: “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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