On this day in New York · September 22, 1776
Nathan Hale Is Hanged as a Spy
A 21-year-old Yale grad turned Continental Army spy was caught with notes in his shoes and hanged near what's now 66th and Third, and the line he supposedly said on the rope outlived the failed mission by 250 years.
The facts
- Date
- September 22, 1776
- Age
- 21
- Execution site
- Near the Dove Tavern, at present-day 66th Street and Third Avenue, Manhattan
- Unit
- Continental Army captain, Knowlton's Rangers
On September 22, 1776, the British hanged 21-year-old Continental Army captain Nathan Hale as a spy near a tavern on what is now 66th Street and Third Avenue. Hale, a Yale graduate serving with Knowlton's Rangers, had crossed behind British lines after New York fell to General Howe's army that September, trying to scout troop positions on Manhattan and Long Island. He was caught with incriminating notes hidden in his shoes and hanged the next morning without a trial, on Howe's personal order. No transcript of his final words survives. The version that stuck came secondhand, from a British officer to an American captain, and turned a one-man mission that failed completely into the country's founding story about dying well for a cause.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
-
I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.
Words attributed to Nathan Hale before his execution, as later recounted by American Captain William Hull, who said he had it from British Captain John Montresor
Source: Wikipedia -
I am so satisfied with the cause in which I have engaged, that my only regret is, that I have not more lives than one to offer in its service.
An earlier printed version of Hale's reported last words, published in the Independent Chronicle and the Universal Advertiser, May 17, 1781
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
Hale's actual mission was a failure, and no one wrote down what he really said on the gallows, but the city built a statue outside City Hall on the strength of the story anyway, a reminder that New York's founding myths got polished long after the fact.
Sources
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