“In his attempt to return he was apprehended, carried before Sir William Howe, and the proof of his object was so clear, that he frankly acknowledged who he was, and what were his views.
“Sir William Howe at once gave an order to the provost marshal to execute him the next morning. This order was accordingly executed, in a most unfeeling manner, and by as great a savage as ever disgraced humanity. A clergyman, whose attendance was desired, was refused him; a bible for a few moments devotion was not procured, although he requested it. Letters, which, on the morning of his execution, he wrote to his mother[9] and other friends, were destroyed; and this very extraordinary reason given by the provost marshal, ‘that the rebels should not know they had a man in their army who could die with so much firmness.’
“Unknown to all around him, without a single friend to offer him the least consolation, thus fell as amiable and as worthy a young man as America could boast, with this as his dying observation, ‘that he only lamented, that he had but one life to lose for his country.’... To see such a character, in the flower of youth, cheerfully treading in the most hazardous paths, influenced by the purest intentions, and only emulous to do good to his country, without the imputation of a crime, fall a victim to policy, must have been wounding to the feelings, even of his enemies. So far [1799] Hale has remained unnoticed, and, it is scarcely known such a character ever existed....”
Fifty years after Hale’s execution the “Long Island Star” published (April 2, 1827) extracts from a letter of Stephen Hempstead, Sen., aged sixty-nine, which Hempstead had published in the “Missouri Republican.” Another ten years went by before the first printed address appeared, and thereafter memoirs and biographies followed at frequent intervals to the present time. Attempts have been made to trace every step in his career, but there is much that still puzzles the historians. Nobody has been able to prove how he got to New York, and no one can say positively where he was captured. From all that has been gathered on the subject, we have arrived at the following conclusions:
The retreat of the American army from Long Island had been satisfactorily accomplished, but the officers found themselves in a most perilous condition when on September 7, 1776, Washington called a council of war to consider the important question: Should they defend or abandon New York? At another council on the 12th, it was decided to move to a position on Harlem Heights, leaving a guard of four thousand men under General Putnam in the city, with orders to follow if necessary. On the 14th, Washington made his headquarters at the house of Robert Murray, father of Lindley Murray the grammarian. From there he wrote to General Heath, then stationed at Kingsbridge:
“As everything, in a manner, depends upon obtaining intelligence of the enemy’s motions, I do most earnestly entreat you and General Clinton to exert yourselves to accomplish this most desirable end. Leave no stone unturned, nor do not stick at expense, to bring this to pass, as I was never more uneasy than on account of my want of knowledge on this score....”
To quote a paragraph from Lossing: “The vital questions pressing for an answer were, Will they make a direct attack upon the city? Will they land upon the island, above the city, or at Morrisania beyond the Harlem River? Will they attempt to cut off our communications with the main, by seizing the region along the Harlem River or at Kingsbridge, by landing forces on the shores of the East and Hudson Rivers, at Turtle Bay, or at Bloomingdale, and, stretching a cordon of armed men from river to river, cut off the four thousand troops left in the city?”
Washington, in his perplexity, called another council of war at Murray’s. He told his officers that he could not procure the least information concerning the intentions of the enemy, and again asked, What shall be done? It was resolved to send a competent person, in disguise, into the British camps on Long Island to unveil the momentous secret. It needed one skilled in military and scientific knowledge; a man possessed of a quick eye, a cool head, unflinching courage; tact, caution, and sagacity—a man on whose judgment and fidelity implicit reliance might be placed.
Washington sent for Lieutenant-Colonel Knowlton and asked him to find a man for the service. Knowlton summoned a number of officers to a conference at his quarters and after explaining the service required called for volunteers. Late in the conference, when it seemed he would not find a man competent and willing to undertake the perilous mission, “a young officer appeared, pale from the effects of recent severe sickness. Knowlton repeated the invitation, when, almost immediately, the voice of the young soldier was heard uttering the momentous words, ‘I will undertake it!’ It was the voice of Captain Nathan Hale.”
Everybody was astonished. The whole company knew Hale. They loved and admired him. After the meeting his friends tried to dissuade him from his decision, setting forth the risk of sacrificing all his good prospects in life and the fond hopes of his family and friends. Hull employed all the force of friendship and the arts of persuasion to bend him from his purpose, but in vain. With warmth and decision Hale said: