"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country!"
The women wept; some of them sobbed audibly. The sublime and burning words of the victim about to be sacrificed upon the altar of liberty, and the visible tokens of sympathy among those who witnessed the scene, maddened the coarse-natured and malignant provost-marshal.[8] He cried out in a voice hoarse with anger, "Swing the rebel off!" and cursed the tearful women with foul imprecations, calling them rebels and harlots!
So ended, in an atmosphere of mingled Christian faith, fortitude, and hope, and of savage barbarism and brutality, the beautiful life-drama of Nathan Hale, the early martyr for the cause of human freedom in the grand struggle for the independence of our country. It is a cause for just reproach of our people that their history, poetry, oratory, and art have, for more than a century, neglected to erect a fitting memorial to his memory—either in the literature of the land he so loved that he freely gave his young life a sacrifice for its salvation from bondage, or in bronze or marble. Nowhere in our broad domain, stretching from sea to sea, teeming with almost sixty million freemen, is there even a mural tablet seen with the name of Nathan Hale upon it, excepting a small monument in his native town, overlooking the graves of his kindred, in an obscure church-yard, which was erected forty years ago.
The body of the martyr was laid in the earth near the spot where his spirit left it. A British officer was sent to acquaint Washington with his fate. A rude stone placed by the side of the grave of his father, in the burial-ground of the Congregational Church in his native town, for long years revealed to passers-by the fact that it was in commemoration of "Nathan Hale, Esq., a captain in the army of the United States, who was born June 6, 1755, received the first honors of Yale College, September, 1773," and "resigned his life a sacrifice to his country's liberty at New York, September 22, 1776, aged twenty-two." An entry of his death was made upon the town records of Coventry.
Late in November, 1837—sixty-one years after his sacrifice—the citizens of Coventry formed a "Hale Monument Association" for the purpose of raising funds for the erection of a suitable memorial to the memory of the young patriot. The association applied in vain to Congress for aid. By fairs, tea-parties, private dramatic performances, and other social appliances, carried on chiefly by the gentler sex, and a grant of twelve hundred dollars by the State of Connecticut, a sufficient sum was secured in 1846 to erect the desired monument.
At one of the fairs, a poem, addressed to "The Daughters of Freedom," and printed on white satin, was offered for sale, and was widely distributed. It contained the following verses:
"Ye come with hearts that oft have glowed
At his soul-stirring tale,
To wreath the deathless evergreen
Around the name of Hale.
"Here his memorial stone shall rise
In freedom's hallowed shade,
Prouder than André's trophied tomb
'Mid mightiest monarchs laid."
