It is the morning of September 22, 1776. Nathan Hale is waiting to be hanged as a spy. A British captain, John Montresor, invites him to spend his remaining time in the captain’s tent, during which Montresor draws out the idealistic Hale. What is freedom? What is courage? What is the value of a life? Montresor subverts the young man’s dreams. By the time Hale understands Montresor’s designs, they are battling for Hale’s soul. Two hours later, Hale is executed. Montresor, under a flag of truce, delivers Hale’s effects. along with the young man’s last words, to the American rebel army. Mr. Ford has taken the circumstances of Hale’s last hours and used them to probe our country, its terrible flaws as well as its wondrous virtues, using both points of view—that of cynic and idealist—to try to understand who we are.