Читать книгу The Two Spies: Nathan Hale and John André - Benson John Lossing - Страница 9

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[5] Her name was Alice Adams. She was a native of Canterbury, Connecticut, and was distinguished both for her intelligence and personal beauty. After Hale's death she married Eleazar Ripley, who left her a widow, with one child, at the age of eighteen years. The child died about a year after its father's death, and the mother subsequently married William Lawrence, of Hartford, where she lived until September, 1845, when she died at the age of eighty-eight years. She possessed a miniature of Hale and many of his letters. The miniature and the letters disappeared many years ago, and there is no likeness of the young martyr extant. The last words uttered by Hale's betrothed were, "Write to Nathan!"—Stuart's "Life of Nathan Hale," p. 28.

[6] The place of Hale's execution has been a subject of conjecture. Some have supposed that it occurred near the Beekman mansion, Howe's headquarters; others, that he was taken from the Provost Prison (now the Hall of Records), in the City Hall Park, to the usual place of execution of state criminals, at the Barracks near Chambers Street; and others, on the farm of Colonel Rutgers, whose country mansion was near the East River—at Pike and Monroe Streets.

In 1849 I visited the venerable Jeremiah Johnson, ex-Mayor of Brooklyn, who was living at his farm-house not far from the Navy-Yard, then between the city of Brooklyn and the village of Williamsburgh. Among other interesting facts concerning the Revolution, of his own experience and observation, which he had treasured in his memory, was that his father was present at the execution of Hale. Like other Long Island farmers at that time, he went to New York occasionally with truck. On the day of the great fire he was there, when himself and his team were pressed into the service of the British. He was with the detachment on Colonel Rutgers's farm at the time of the execution, and saw the martyr hanged upon the limb of an apple-tree in Rutgers's orchard. It was at the west side, not far from the line of (present) East Broadway.

[7] The method employed at military executions at that time was to place a ladder against the gallows-beam or limb, cause the prisoner to ascend it a few feet, and, at a given signal, turn the ladder and leave the victim suspended.

[8] The pen of every writer who has noticed the career of William Cunningham, the notorious provost-marshal of the British army in New York and Philadelphia, has portrayed him as a most detestable character. To the credit of the commander with whom he served, be it said that it is satisfactorily proven that he was employed directly by the British ministry, and was independent of the authority of Howe and Clinton. He was a large, burly, red-haired, red-faced Irishman, sixty years of age, addicted to strong drink to excess, and with most forbidding features. His cruelties and crimes committed while in charge of prisoners of war in New York were notorious and monstrous. Upon the scaffold in England, after the war, he confessed that he had caused the death of fully two thousand prisoners under his charge by starvation and otherwise. He put poison into their food at times, and sold their rations for his own benefit, allowing the prisoners to starve!

[9] A ballad was written and published, soon after Hale's death, which was very popular at the time. It was evidently written by one who was not well informed as to the true history of the matter. Of his arrest the ballad says:

"Cooling shades of the night were coming apace,

The tattoo had beat, the tattoo had beat,

The noble one sprang from his dark lurking-place,

To make his retreat, to make his retreat.

"He warily trod on the dry, rustling leaves

As he passed through the wood, as he passed through the wood,

And silently gained his rude launch on the shore,

As she played with the flood, as she played with the flood.

"The guards of the camp on that dark, dreary night

Had a murderous will, a murderous will;

They took him and bore him afar from the shore,

To a hut on the hill, to a hut on the hill."

[10] "Life of Captain Nathan Hale, the Martyr Spy of the American Revolution." By I.W. Stuart, Hartford, 1856.

[11] A statue in plaster, modeled from a description of Hale's features and person, has been made by E.S. Wood, sculptor. It represents an athletic young man, with his coat and vest removed, his neck and upper portion of his chest bared by the turning down of the collar of his ruffled shirt, and holding in his right hand, which is resting upon his hip, the rope with which he is about to be suspended from the tree. The face of the martyr is an excellent ideal of the character of the young hero.

John André