Apr 17, 2012 - Sale 2276

Sale 2276 - Lot 154

Price Realized: $ 10,200
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,500
"I HED TWO MEN KILLED & ONE TAKEN BY THE INDANS" (TICONDEROGA.) HALE, NATHAN. Group of 9 Autograph Letters Signed as Major in the Continental Army, to his wife Abigail. Various sizes and conditions; most worn and stabilized with early repairs. Vp, mostly Fort Ticonderoga, NY, April 1776 to June 1777
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Additional Details

Nathan Hale (1743-1780) was a farmer and merchant from Rindge, NH who served in the Siege of Boston during the early months of the war (see Lot 144). He became a major in the 2nd Continental Infantry in January 1776, and was soon deployed in the New York theater. He rose to the rank of colonel by July 1777, when he was captured at the Battle of Hubbardton. He lost his life in a British prison in New York in 1780, four years after his more famous namesake Nathan Hale (1755-1776).
Over the course of these letters, Hale is ordered from Boston to New York, then north to Quebec, back to Fort Ticonderoga and its sister fort Mount Independence, south to briefly join Washington's forces, and then back up to Ticonderoga. The letters are often high in drama, full of frank observations, and are a testament to the outer limits of creative phonetic spelling. Arriving in Manhattan in April 1776, Hale found it to be a den of sin: "Thare is a grate maney savijes here & bad peopel & sum very clever peopel, but I think apan the howl it is one of the wickedest places this side of Hell & I believe Hell grones for them. It would surprise aney rashinal person to see the carreing on of sum of the peopel in this place."
By 1 June, Hale was in Canada to help reinforce the Quebec campaign. He describes the Battle of the Cedars at length: "Major Butterfield with a detachment of about 350 ware all taken prisnors at the Cedars on the River St. Larrance about 40 miles above Mantral. Thay ware captivated with about half thare number. It is surposed the major was intemidated and gave up the fort when he might have keept it as well as not. . . . Major Sharban was sent to reinface him with about 150 men & ware surrounded by the enemy & all taken or killed. . . . The Indian tommahawk a number of them."
On 12 August, from the relative safety of Fort Ticonderoga, Hale describes Benjamin Whitcomb's exploits as a spy in Canada, killing British General Gordon: "Leiut Whitcomb went into Canada as a spye, was three weekes, worked thare motions, saw them parse & reparse. After he had seane all that he thought was of advantige or nesary to make returne of to the Genreal, he spyed an officer of the Regt parsing by on hors back. He fierd at him & surposed he shoot him through the brest." He also provides second-hand accounts of the Battles of Long Island and Valcour Island.
Hale's final letter was written as a colonel, and describes aggressive enemy activity close to Ticonderoga on 21 June 1777: "I hed two men killed & one taken by the Indans in sight of owre camp. The next day but one I had another killed by his guns going of axedentley. It split his hed in two. . . . The same partey of Indans that killed and took my men met a small scout of owre rangers & ambushed them so thay ware within four yards of the Indans before thay discovered them." A more detailed summary of these dramatic letters is available upon request.