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Kids 5: Activity Day Resources Nathan Hale (continued...) General William Howe ordered him to be hanged the next morning. Hale wrote a letter to his mother and brother, but the British destroyed them, not wanting it known a man could die with such firmness. He asked for a Bible but was refused. Nathan Hale was marched out and hanged from an apple-tree in Rutgers’s orchard, near the present streets of East Broadway and Market in New York City. His executioners reported that the young man “bore himself with gentle dignity, great composure and resolution.” The Essex Journal stated of Nathan Hale February 13, 1777, “At the gallows, he made a sensible and spirited speech; among other things, told them they were shedding the blood of the innocent, and that if he had ten thousand lives, he would lay them all down, if called to it, in defense of his injured, bleeding Country.” On November 19, 1863, Nathan Hale’s nephew, Massachusetts Governor Edward Everett, spoke at the dedication of the Battlefield right before Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address. Nathan Hale’s grandnephew was well-known author Edward Everett Hale, who wrote, “We are God’s children, you and I, and we have our duties...Thank God I come from men who are not afraid in battle.” Nathan Hale’s final words are a testament to the patriot he was. His life, cut short so young, is immortalized as an extraordinary example of public virtue. “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country” — Nathan Hale, September 22, 1776 Moms for America ✯ Cottage Kids 9