This image is the cover for the book The Two Spies: Nathan Hale and John André, The World At War

The Two Spies: Nathan Hale and John André, The World At War

Excerpt: "This little volume contains a brief account of the most important events in the life-career of two notable spies in our War for Independence, NATHAN HALE and JOHN ANDRE. They were both young men, well educated, endowed with genius and ability for conspicuous achievements, brave and accomplished soldiers, pure and virtuous in private character, truthful, manly, refined in thoughts and manners, handsome in person, lovely in disposition, and beloved by all who knew them."

Benson John Lossing

Benson John Lossing (February 12, 1813 – June 3, 1891) was a prolific and popular American historian, known best for his illustrated books on the American Revolution and American Civil War and features in Harper's Magazine. He was a charter trustee of Vassar College. Lossing's significance as a historian derives from his diligence in seeking out primary records, his interviews with participants of events and intimates of his biographical subjects, and his care to weigh and contrast details of his various sources. Although such efforts are today a standard among historians, in Lossing's time they were not. Historiography was not yet a discipline. Washington Irving, with whom he corresponded, wrote, "I have been gratified at finding how scrupulously attentive you have been to accuracy to facts, which is so essential in writings of an historical nature." This made him an essential secondary source for contemporary and succeeding historians and enough of an institution for Theodore Roosevelt in his "Naval War of 1812" to adduce simply "Lossing" in stating a fact, in the same manner as historians use the figure "Gibbon" or "Toynbee".

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