Nathan Hale

Nathan Hale was hanged in New York on September 22, 1776. He was twenty-one. A Yale graduate from Coventry, Connecticut, he had taught school, then taken a captaincy in the 19th Continental Regiment. After the army was driven off Long Island, Washington asked for a volunteer to go behind the British lines and learn what Howe meant to do next. Hale went.

He was taken in disguise. The British treated him as a spy, which under the laws of war meant a rope and not a trial that would have pleased a Connecticut courtroom. Later generations kept a last sentence about having only one life to lose for his country. Whether he spoke those exact words is less certain than the fact that he died for the errand.

His body was not returned in a way that left a marked grave. That is not the same as a modern missing-in-action finding, and this register will not invent one. It is enough to say the young captain was buried without a stone the family could visit.

Connecticut raised statues. The army kept the story as a warning and a standard: intelligence work is not a parade, and the first Americans who did it paid cash.