Ghost Tee

The dawn was heavy with fog on September 22, 1776, as Nathan Hale stood shackled in the British camp near Manhattan. Just twenty-one years old, the schoolteacher-turned-soldier hadn’t slept. His mission—to spy on the British in New York—had ended in failure. Caught with incriminating documents and no cover story, his fate was sealed. He hadn’t begged. Hadn’t wept. Not when they searched him. Not when they denied him a Bible. Not even when they told him the gallows would be built at first light. In the hours before sunrise, a British officer, moved by Hale’s composure, allowed him a few final words. He didn’t write a letter. He didn’t curse the enemy. He stood tall on the scaffold—unshaven, bloodied from capture, but proud. Soldiers gathered in silence. The rope was coarse against his throat. And then he said it: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” The trapdoor dropped. And the Revolution had its first martyr. No fanfare. No medal. Just a ghost in Continenta