Posted on 09/21/2003 4:07:23 AM PDT by RJCogburn
A manuscript given to the Library of Congress may solve a mystery as old as the American Revolution: how the British caught and executed Nathan Hale for spying.
It turns out that Hale, considered by the Central Intelligence Agency to be the first American executed for spying for his country, probably made some monumentally naïve mistakes, chief among them trusting a stranger with the secret of his mission. Those blunders could have led to his hanging 227 years ago this Monday.
Details of Hale's capture had eluded historians, but library officials have new information from the manuscript, written during or soon after the Revolution by Consider Tiffany, a Connecticut storekeeper and British sympathizer. The document was donated to the library in 2000 by a descendant, G. Bradford Tiffany.
James Hutson, head of the library's manuscript division, said the document appears to identify Maj. Robert Rogers, a British hero from the earlier French and Indian War, as the man who trapped Hale by pretending to be a Colonial spy, too.
Hale, a Connecticut schoolteacher and Yale graduate, rose quickly in the Continental Army and was promoted to captain in 1776. Later that year, Gen. George Washington, the army's commander, was driven out of Long Island by the British and badly needed information on the enemy's strength and plans, which meant sending a spy into British territory.
Hale volunteered — by some accounts he was the only volunteer — saying it was his patriotic duty.
"I wish to be useful, and every kind of service necessary to the public good becomes honorable by being necessary," he told Capt. William Hull, a friend from his regiment who tried to dissuade him.
Hale put on civilian clothes and left his uniform and papers with a fellow soldier. He found a boat to cross from Norwalk, Conn., to Long Island, where he slipped behind enemy lines.
But he was not trained in spying, and Hale evidently was easy prey for Rogers, an expert frontier warrior who had led a group of rangers in the French and Indian War.
According to the Tiffany manuscript, Rogers observed Hale for some days, suspecting that Hale was in disguise, and decided to engage him in conversations about the war.
Rogers led Hale to believe that he himself was "upon the business of spying out the inclination of the people and motion of the British troops," Tiffany wrote.
Hale then told Rogers of his mission, and Rogers invited him to dinner at his quarters, where he and several friends began the same kind of talk, the manuscript said.
"But at the height of their conversation, a company of soldiers surrounded the house, and by orders from the commander, seized Captain Hale in an instant," Tiffany wrote.
Hale was brought before the British commander, Sir William Howe, in Manhattan. After the British found incriminating papers on him, "he at once declared his name, his rank in the American army, and his object in coming within the British lines," a friend reported.
The British hanged Hale the next morning, Sept. 22, 1776, at an artillery park near Dove Tavern. Historians place it near what is now 66th Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan.
It was there that Hale was reputed to have uttered his famous line, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country," probably a paraphrase of a line from a popular play by the British writer Joseph Addison.
In an article for the Library of Congress's Information Bulletin, Mr. Hutson discussed Hale's inexperienced espionage.
"How could anyone on a secret mission be so stupid, or to use more generous terms, so naïve or so credulous, to be taken in by a perfect stranger and then to disclose, the next day, the object of his mission to several more perfect strangers?" Mr. Hutson wrote.
Despite Hale's failure as a spy, a statue of him inscribed with his last words has a place of honor at the C.I.A. headquarters in McLean, Va.
As I recall, he majored in education.
I am glad I don't have to do surgery this morning.
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