Nathan Hale

Continental Army officer executed as a spy, 1755–1776. 1 explained quote.

≈ Paraphrase · Start here

“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

Nathan Hale · 1776

≈ Paraphrase

“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

Nathan Hale · Last words before his execution, as reported by witnesses · 1776 · Military leader

The last words reported of a 21-year-old American spy hanged by the British. They were written down years later, and they echo a line from a popular play of the time.

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About Nathan Hale

Nathan Hale was a Yale graduate and schoolteacher from Connecticut who joined the Continental Army at the start of the American Revolution. In September 1776 he volunteered to go behind British lines on Long Island to gather intelligence, was captured, and was hanged as a spy in Manhattan on September 22, 1776, at the age of twenty-one.

No portrait of Hale was made during his lifetime, so every image of him, including the well-known statues at Yale and in New York, is an artist’s imagining. His fame rests on a single sentence he is reported to have said before his execution, recorded years later from the memory of witnesses.