The Battle of Long Island leads to British victory and the capture of New York City via a flanking move from Staten Island across Long Island.

Nathan Hale had volunteered on September 8, 1776, to go behind enemy lines and report on British troop movements.

He had been ferried across on September 12.

It is an act of spying that is immediately punishable by death and poses a great risk to Hale.

During his mission, New York City (at this time the area at the southern tip of Manhattan around Wall Street) has fallen to British forces on September 15 and Washington has been forced to retreat to the island's north in Harlem Heights (what is now Morningside Heights).

Several people, including General Nathanael Greene and New York's John Jay, had advocated burning the city down to deny its benefits to the British.

Washington had laid the question before the Second Continental Congress, which rejected the idea: "it should in no event be damaged."

Nathan Hal was born in Coventry, Connecticut, in 1755 to Richard Hale and Elizabeth Strong.

In 1768, when he was fourteen years old, he was sent with his brother Enoch, who was sixteen, to Yale College.

Nathan was a classmate of fellow patriot spy Benjamin Tallmadge.

The Hale brothers belonged to the Linonian Society of Yale, which debates topics in astronomy, mathematics, literature, and the ethics of slavery.

Nathan graduated with first-class honors in 1773 at age eighteen and became a teacher, first in East Haddam and later in New London.

After the Revolutionary War began in 1775, he had joined a Connecticut militia and was elected first lieutenant within five months.

His militia unit had participated in the Siege of Boston, but Hale had remained behind.

It has been suggested that he was unsure as to whether he wanted to fight, or whether he was hindered because his teaching contract in New London did not expire until several months later, in July 1775.

On July 4, 1775, Hale had received a letter from his classmate and friend Benjamin Tallmadge, who had gone to Boston to see the siege for himself.

He had written to Hale, "Was I in your condition, I think the more extensive service would be my choice. Our holy Religion, the honor of our God, a glorious country, & a happy constitution is what we have to defend."

Tallmadge's letter was so inspiring that, several days later, Hale had accepted a commission as first lieutenant in the 7th Connecticut Regiment under Colonel Charles Webb of Stamford.

In the following spring, the army had moved to Manhattan Island to prevent the British from taking over New York City.

In September, General Washingtonh ad been desperate to determine the location of the imminent British invasion of Manhattan Island.

To this end, Washington needed a spy behind enemy lines, and Hale was the only volunteer.