18th Century history

After being found guilty of espionage, Major John André—the British head of intelligence under Sir Henry Clinton—died of execution by hanging in Tappan, New York on October 2, 1780. While there couldn’t be any doubt of the evidence proving André a spy, George Washington was willing to spare him and send him back to General Clinton in New York City…if Clinton would send Benedict Arnold to Washington in exchange! But, as badly as Clinton wanted his good friend André back, he couldn’t agree to a deal like that. He knew that, if he did turn Arnold over, that he’d discourage other “rebels” from defecting to the British side.

André responded to his death sentence with resignation and fortitude. He sent to New York City for a regimental uniform, so he could wear it to his execution…which he believed would happen by firing squad. But when he saw the gallows waiting for him instead, he faltered and had to stop and look away. An execution by hanging was a death usually reserved for the lowest of criminals, and as André prided himself on being a gentleman, he found it a cruel end to accept. I imagine he thought, at that moment, of how much it would hurt his family and friends to learn that he died on a gibbet. “I am reconciled to my fate,” he said, “but not to the mode of it!”

But André quickly gathered his remaining courage and went to stand under the gibbet, placing the noose around his neck himself. He also tied a kerchief around his face, but then he lifted it for a moment, looking straight into the eyes of the men who stood watching. “All I request of you, gentlemen,” he said, “is that you bear witness to the world that I die like a brave man.” 

And they did. No one present that day took any pleasure in André’s death, enemy though he might have been. André’s monument at Westminster Abbey declares truthfully that he was “lamented even by his FOES.”