The Famous Last Words No One Wrote Down

American patriot Nathan Hale is remembered for one of the most famous lines of the Revolutionary War: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

There’s just one problem. No one wrote down Hale saying it.

Hale was a 21-year-old Yale graduate and former schoolteacher who volunteered to spy behind British lines around New York during the American Revolution.

According to the American Revolution Institute, Hale was captured while dressed as a civilian and carrying papers that revealed his mission. Among his possessions was his Yale diploma.

The British hanged Hale on the morning of Sept. 22, 1776 — 250 years ago this month — near what is now 66th Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan.

The words that made Hale famous came later.

William Hull, who had known Hale, published an account years afterward attributing the celebrated statement to him. But Hull was not present at Hale’s execution and did not hear the words himself.

There is another wrinkle in the story.

Hale’s supposed final statement closely resembles a line from “Cato,” a popular play by English writer Joseph Addison: “What pity is it that we can die but once to serve our country.”

The play was well known in colonial America, raising the possibility that Hale’s final remarks were remembered, retold, or polished over the years into the patriotic sentence generations of Americans learned in school.

Whatever Hale’s exact words were, the basic story behind them remains: A 21-year-old volunteer went behind enemy lines on behalf of the American cause, was captured, and faced execution.

The sentence history remembers may not be a transcript of Nathan Hale’s final moments.

But 250 years later, it remains the sentence most Americans associate with his name.