Nathan Hale: A True American Hero

My person is nathan hale he was a white patriot in the american revolution. he helped with the siege on the british when there were the first casualties of war. He also served in connecticut. He was also a spy for the patriots and went to new york city to spy on the british when he was 21 years old. His last words were ¨ my only regret is that i have but one life to give for my country.¨

Hale, Nathan (June 6, 1755 - Sept. 22, 1776), patriot, spy, hanged by the British, long known as the "Martyr Spy" of the Revolutionary War, and now revered as the ideal youthful hero of the Republic, was born in Coventry, among the hills of Tolland County, Conn. His father, Richard, a descendant of Robert Hale who settled in Cambridge, Mass., in 1632, …show more content…
His activities are reflected in his diary and letters, which reveal an alert, serious young officer, keenly interested in everything going on, but with time for social intercourse, for correspondence with family and friends, and for wholesome, manly exercise and sports, all entered into with refreshing zest. On Jan. 1, 1776, he was promoted to a captaincy. When Boston was evacuated in March the colonial army was moved to New York. Hale arrived there on Apr. 30, and before the middle of May, assisted by "sailors and skippers" of his company, he executed the feat of cutting out a sloop loaded with supplies from under the guns of the British man-of-war Asia. His natural leadership, resourcefulness, and devotion led Lieut.-Col. Thomas Knowlton to select him as one of the captains of the "Knowlton …show more content…
At first no one responded but at the second call Hale offered himself for the dangerous enterprise. When an intimate friend, Capt. William Hull, sought to dissuade him, he replied: "I wish to be useful, and every kind of service, necessary to the public good, becomes honorable by being necessary." Intending to assume the rôle of schoolmaster and taking his college diploma as his credentials, he left the camp on Harlem Heights about Sept. 12 and proceeded in a roundabout way to Long Island. Having accomplished his mission, he returned to New York and had almost reached his own picket lines, when, on the night of Sept. 21, he was apprehended as a spy and taken before General Howe, whose headquarters were then in the Beekman mansion. That he was betrayed by his Tory cousin, Samuel, was the belief of the times and of his family. Sketches and other valuable military information having been found on his person, "he at once declared his name, his rank in the American Army, and his object in coming within the British lines." Howe, without the form of a trial, gave orders for his execution the next day. While preparations for the hanging were being made on the morning of Sunday, Sept. 22, he was permitted the hospitality of the tent of Capt. John Montresor, chief engineer of