Interesting reading about Nathan Hale

Nathan Hale was a patriot soldier during the Revolutionary War, who was executed as a spy by the British at the age of 21 in NYC, where he was captured after it fell to the British. Here's an interesting American Heritage article about him. I'm pointing it out because with our increasingly fantasy and fictionalized oriented society it is important to read the facts in the words of the people who lived at the time. This is also important to remember when reading the Bible. People before this fantasy and personal drama obsessed age tended to be very factual and terse when writing about people and events. The exception is foreign lands and adventure authors because the exploration of strange lands and encountering odd people was where people at that time would let their imagination and descriptions run wild. But in day to day discourse and the writing of letters the people who lived before these past few generations were much less sensational and more fact oriented. There was poetic license when writing what is known as odes or elegies, which are somewhat fanciful tributes toward an individual's memory. I include two really interesting parts. One describes his faith and prayerfulness. The other describes the discovery in the 1900's of a letter by his father, sadly remembering him.

Standard Reminder: By the way, I'm interested in Nathan Hale as part of my general interest in George Washington and the patriots of the time, not because Nathan Hale is reincarnated or because "Hale" is an anagram for "heal."

http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1964/3/1964_3_50.shtml

snip

he was undoubtedly Pious; for it was remark’d that when any of the soldiers of his company were sick he always visited them & usually Prayed for & with them in their sickness.…

snip

A brief excerpt from a letter written at Coventry, Connecticut, the following spring by Nathan Hale’s father, Richard, who had six sons altogether in the Revolution, betrays the deep grief of this unlettered man:…you desired me to inform you about my son Nathan…he was executed about the 22nd of September Last by the Aconts we have had. A Child I sot much by but he is gone…

•This letter, addressed to Richard Hale’s brother, Major Samuel Hale, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on March 28, 1777, was put away in a secret drawer of the Major’s desk. In 1908, the old desk was sold at auction as an antique, and three years later the new owner, the Honorable Frank L. Howe of Barrington, New Hampshire, chanced upon it. Such is the thrill of historical discovery.

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By "unlettered" the author means that Nathan Hale's father could not read or write well or at all. By "a Child I sot much by" Nathan Hale's father meant "a Child I sought much by," meaning he anticipated much promise for him and cared for him very much.