America 250: Nathan Hale

The American Revolutionary War spy is famous for his alleged final words on losing his life for his country.

Nathan Hale was born in 1755 in Coventry, Connecticut, and was raised in a Puritan family that valued faith, hard work, and education. He attended Yale University and became a schoolteacher before the American Revolution. After fighting broke out at Lexington and Concord, Hale joined the Connecticut militia and later the Continental Army’s Seventh Connecticut Regiment. In September 1776, he volunteered to go behind British lines on Long Island to gather intelligence. He was captured by the British and executed as a spy on September 22, 1776. He is remembered for the famous line, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,” though the exact wording of his final statement is debated. In 1985, by an act of the General Assembly, Hale officially became Connecticut’s state hero.