The outbreak of the War of Independence with the battle of Lexington, 19th April 1775, upset the philosophic dreams of the Connecticut teacher. Throughout the New England States, action was at once and almost unanimously called for, and among those who became earnest advocates of patriotic endeavour, young Hale began to take a prominent place. "Let us march at once," he cried, "nor ever lay down our arms till we have obtained our independence." Hale was, indeed, the first speaker to voice the popular notion of freedom from the union with Great Britain. In co-operation with kindred spirits, he set about the forming of a local regiment for immediate service at the Front. He himself eventually enlisted in Webb's corps, a kind of territorial organisation for local defence. In 1775 Hale was present with his regiment at the siege of Boston, where his conspicuous activities won him a captaincy. The British were driven from that city in March 1776 and sailed for Halifax, the American forces in their turn moving on New York. That Hale's patriotism was of a purely disinterested kind would seem to be shown by the fact that he himself paid for the services of many of his enlisted men. At New York Hale distinguished himself at once by capturing a British vessel carrying large supplies, a midnight raid of much danger which secured for his regiment provisions for a lengthy subsistence and to himself the notice of General Washington, by whom he was presently to be entrusted with the carrying out of a mission the successful results of which must react decisively on the whole war. The commission entrusted to Hale was nothing less than the penetration of the enemy's plan of campaign, an absolutely necessary condition of success for the Revolutionary commanders and for the following reasons:—
After the various actions which compelled the retreat of the insurgents from Long Island, the main American army in Manhattan, owing to the demoralised state of its men, ill-clad, half-starved and unpaid as they were, seemed to be on the point of dissolution. In a force which on paper totalled 20,000 men, desertion and disease had discounted one-third of the numbers. Opposed to them was a British army of 25,000 strong, supported by a powerful naval force. Its soldiers were veterans who had already tasted success and were magnificently equipped with artillery, stores and war-munitions of every sort. The military crux which confronted Washington was the defence or the abandonment of New York, the strategic key of the existing military situation. Unable, owing to inaction to which his topographical position as well as the hesitations of Congress condemned him, to divine the real intentions of the British, Washington instructed his lieutenants to obtain at all hazards correct information as to the designs of the enemy's generals. "Leave no stone unturned," he wrote to General Heath, "nor do not stick at expense to bring this to pass, as I was never more uneasy than on account of my want of knowledge on this score." The vital matter was to find out at which point, if at all, the British intended to attack New York. Such being the situation, it was decided to send a competent observer in disguise into the British lines on Long Island, in order to penetrate the momentous secret, and Nathan Hale volunteered for the execution of the perilous undertaking.
