The Two Spies: Nathan Hale and John André

by Benson John Lossing

"From fame-leaf and angel-leaf,
From monument and urn,
The sad of earth, the glad of heaven,
His tragic fate shall learn;
And on fame-leaf and angel-leaf
The name of Hale shall burn!"

At the dedication of a monument in 1853, erected on the spot near Tarrytown where André was captured, the late Henry J. Raymond, in an address on the occasion, said:

"At an early stage of the Revolution, Nathan Hale, captain in the American army, which he had entered, abandoning brilliant prospects of professional distinction for the sole purpose of defending the liberties of his country—gifted, educated, ambitious—the equal of André in talent, in worth, in amiable manners, and in every manly quality, and his superior in that final test of character—the motives by which his acts were prompted and his life was guided—laid aside every consideration personal to himself, and entered upon a service of infinite hazard to life and honor, because Washington deemed it important to the sacred cause to which both had been sacredly set apart. Like André, he was found in the hostile camp; like him, though without trial, he was adjudged as a spy; and, like him, he was condemned to death.

"And here the likeness ends. No consoling word, no pitying or respectful look, cheered the dark hours of his doom. He was met with insult at every turn. The sacred consolations of the minister of God were denied him; the Bible was taken from him; with an excess of barbarity hard to be paralleled in civilized war, his dying letters of farewell to his mother and sisters were destroyed in his presence; and, uncheered by sympathy, mocked by brutal power, and attended only by that sense of duty, incorruptible, undefiled, which had ruled his life—finding a fit farewell in the serene and sublime regret that he had 'but one life to lose for his country'—he went forth to meet the great darkness of an ignominious death.

"The loving hearts of his early companions have erected a neat monument to his memory in his native town; but, beyond that little circle, where stands his name recorded? While the majesty of England, in the person of her sovereign, sent an embassy across the sea to solicit the remains of André at the hands of his foes, that they might be enshrined in that sepulchre where she garners the relics of her mighty and renowned sons—

'Splendid in their ashes, pompous in the grave,'

the children of Washington have left the body of Hale to sleep in its unknown tomb, though it be on his native soil, unhonored by any outward observance, unmarked by any memorial stone. Monody, eulogy, monument of marble or of brass, and of letters more enduring than all, have in his own land and in ours given the name and fate of André to the sorrowing remembrance of all time to come. American genius has celebrated his praises, has sung of his virtues, and exalted to heroic heights his prayer, manly but personal to himself, for choice in the manner of death—his dying challenge to all men to witness the courage with which he met his fate. But where, save on the cold page of history, stands the record of Hale? Where is the hymn that speaks to immortality, and tells of the added brightness and enhanced glory when his soul joined its noble host? And where sleep the American of Americans, that their hearts are not stirred to solemn rapture at the thought of the sublime love of country which buoyed him not alone 'above the fear of death,' but far beyond all thought of himself, of his fate and his fame, or of anything less than his country—and which shaped his dying breath into the sacred sentence which trembled at the last upon his quivering lip?"

These eloquent words have a deeper significance to-day than when they were uttered a generation ago. It is a just reproach to a nation of nearly sixty million freemen, rich and powerful beyond any other people on the globe, that the memory of Nathan Hale, their self-sacrificing benefactor in purpose, and a true and noble martyr in the cause of the liberty they enjoy, has been, until lately, absolutely neglected by them; that no "monody, eulogy, monument of marble or of brass," dedicated to him by the public voice, appears anywhere in our broad land. But there are now abundant promises that this reproach will be speedily removed. An earnest effort was begun by the "Daily Telegraph," a morning journal of New York city, late in 1885, to procure funds by half-dime or "nickel" subscriptions, sufficient to erect a suitable monument to the memory of Nathan Hale, in the city of New York, where he suffered martyrdom. There is also a project on foot for the erection of a statue of Hale in the Connecticut State Capitol at Hartford. For this purpose the State of Connecticut has appropriated five thousand dollars.

Let the conscience of our people, inspired by gratitude and patriotism, be fairly awakened to the propriety of the undertaking, and funds will speedily be forthcoming sufficient to erect a magnificent monument in memory of Nathan Hale, in the city where he died for his country. I recommend, as a portion of the inscription upon the monument, the subjoined epitaph, written fully thirty years ago, by George Gibbs, the ripe scholar and antiquary, who was at one time the librarian of the New York Historical Society:[11]

STRANGER, BENEATH THIS STONE
LIES THE DUST OF
A SPY,
WHO PERISHED UPON THE GIBBET;
YET
THE STORIED MARBLES OF THE GREAT,
THE SHRINES OF HEROES,
ENTOMBED NOT ONE MORE WORTHY OF
HONOR
THAN HIM WHO HERE
SLEEPS HIS LAST SLEEP.
NATIONS
BOW WITH REVERENCE BEFORE THE DUST
OF HIM WHO DIES
A GLORIOUS DEATH,
URGED ON BY THE SOUND OF THE
TRUMPET
AND THE SHOUTS OF
ADMIRING THOUSANDS.
BUT WHAT REVERENCE, WHAT HONOR,
IS NOT DUE TO ONE
WHO FOR HIS COUNTRY ENCOUNTERED
EVEN AN INFAMOUS DEATH,
SOOTHED BY NO SYMPATHY,
ANIMATED BY NO PRAISE!