Avenging Nathan Hale

Last week, a beloved coworker left the company because a family situation has made it so that she needs to move back to Virginia. (I plan to visit her over there once I get settled enough on the east coast to travel.) To send her off properly, of course, we held another Winchester Nerf War. The theme was vigilantes. Some people dressed as Batman or the Green Arrow. Sarah dressed as the Winter Soldier.

Me? I dressed as Nathan Hale.

SHUT UP HE TOTALLY COUNTS OKAY?

Sarah got it, and a couple of other people sort of got it when I gave my quick explanation of "he was a spy in the Revolutionary War". I don't think anyone cared, we all just wanted to shoot each other. But, of course, I'm rather attached to Nathan Hale and I totally think he could count as a vigilante, and I fought well that night so I would say I avenged his untimely death in my own way. And since this is my blog and I can post whatever the shit I want, I'm gonna give the man his own post.

vig·i·lan·te

ˌvijəˈlan(t)ē/

noun

noun: vigilante; plural noun: vigilantes

1. a member of a self-appointed group of citizens who undertake law enforcement in their community without legal authority, typically because the legal agencies are thought to be inadequate.

  
By that definition, one could argue that every Patriot soldier was a vigilante, since the legal authority at the time was the British crown. But this isn't a serious post about the virtues of the patriots vs those of the loyalists. This is about my weird affection for a man hardly anyone remembers. So who was Nathan Hale?

A graduate of Yale college, the great-grandson of Salem judge Reverend John Hale, and a teacher, Hale joined the Continental army in 1775. While he was elected to a fairly high rank pretty quickly (first lieutenant), he did not take place in the Siege of Boston. Historians are unsure why. It is possible that he was a practical pacifist who believed in liberty and the patriot cause but did not want to fight. It has also been suggested his teaching contract wasn't done yet and he had to finish that first. Either way, his unit ended up moving to Manhattan in 1776 to help General Washington's troops in their efforts to stop the British from taking New York.

If you know Revolutionary War history (or if you've listened to the "Hamilton" soundtrack enough times) you might already know this, but their efforts didn't work very well. The Battle of Brooklyn/The Battle of Long Island (whatever you decide to call it) were devastating losses for the patriot army. Washington's forces were desperate not to let the British take Manhattan, but they were surrounded on all sides. They needed a miracle. Or... a spy.

Enter my man Nathan Hale. He volunteered to disguise himself as a civilian and go across enemy lines to retrieve British plans for Washington. Spying was punishable by hanging - back then considered a very dishonourable way to die - so this was an incredible risk for Hale, but he believed very strongly that what he was doing was the right thing.

Unfortunately it didn't work out for him. Accounts differ on how he was caught. Some think Major Robert Rogers tricked Hale into revealing his identity by pretending to be patriots as well, and some think his loyalist cousin Samuel Hale recognised him. Either way, he was caught, and physical evidence was found on him. Nathan Hale was doomed.

He was kept as a prisoner overnight. He requested a Bible, but the British denied him that. Then, he requested a clergyman. That, too was denied. The next morning - 22 September 1776 - he was marched to the gallows. His last words were purportedly "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country" which, if true, is totally badass. Still, they hung him.

He was only 21.

No contemporary portraits of Hale exist so have this statue

There are three sites in New York City that claim to be the site of Hale's untimely death (and you bet your ass I plan to visit all of them):

• 66th Street and Third Avenue, currently a Gap store
• City Hall Park, where a statue of Hale was erected in 1890
• Inside Grand Central Terminal

His body has never been found. (An archaeological mystery that I hope is solved within my lifetime!) His family erected a headstone over an empty grave in Connecticut - the cemetery which holds it has now been named Nathan Hale Cemetery. He's a state hero in Connecticut (where Sarah Winchester is from, so it's possible she may have known about him - sorry, I do contextualise a lot in relation to her) but other than that, as my coworkers proved, he seems to not be remembered very well.

He does appear in the webcomic "The Dreamer" which, though I do have a lot of faults with it, at least does Hale justice in my opinion. He's mentioned offhand once in AMC's "Turn: Washington's Spies" (and I think he should have been mentioned more considering Benjamin Talmadge, one of the main characters of "Turn", was friends with Hale irl). He is never mentioned in "Hamilton" but I'm willing to forgive that because I don't know if Alexander Hamilton and Nathan Hale ever met - if they did it would have been very briefly.

Still, I like Nathan Hale. He was just a young boy who believed very strongly in the patriot cause even if he wasn't fond of fighting. And I think his spy efforts, though they got him killed, earn him the title of "vigilante", at least for a Nerf War.

Perhaps dressing as someone who got killed early on in a war wasn't the best choice for Nerf War, but you know what? In the last sudden death match, I was the last one standing. I avenged him. I won. For Nathan Hale. (And for the opportunity to shoot my best friend with a foam dart.)

Hopefully this post has inspired at least one person to respect Hale just a little more today. Who are your favourite vigilantes from history?
-Nym-