"Sympathy toward a soldier will surely induce your Excellency and a military tribunal to adapt the mode of my death to the feelings of a man of honor. "Let me hope, sir, that if aught in my character impresses you with esteem toward me, if aught in my misfortune marks me as the victim of policy and not of resentment, I shall experience the operation of those feelings in your breast by being informed that I am not to die on a gibbet. "I have the honor to be your Excellency's most obedient and most humble servant, John André." Colonel Hamilton urged Washington to comply with André's request, but the commander could not grant it. Unwilling to wound the feelings of the prisoner by a refusal, he did not reply to the note. On the preceding evening André wrote letters to his mother, sisters, Miss Seward, and other friends, and made a pen-and-ink sketch of himself sitting at a table with a pen in his hand. On the following morning he made a rude sketch, with pen and ink, depicting the scene of his passage from the _Vulture_ to the shore, when he went to meet Arnold.[55] At noon on the 2d day of October, 1780, Major André was executed upon an eminence near Tappaan village, in the presence of a vast concourse of people. He was dressed in full military costume and white top-boots. He was taken to the gallows--a cross-piece between two moderate-sized trees--by a procession of nearly all the field-officers, excepting Washington and his staff, who remained at headquarters. General Greene led the cavalcade, which passed between two files of soldiers, extending from the prison up to the fatal spot. The prisoner's step was firm, and he did not falter until he saw the gallows, and knew he was to be hanged as a felon and not shot as a soldier. His hesitation was only for a moment. A baggage-wagon, bearing a plain pine coffin, had been driven under the gallows. A grave had been dug near by. Into the wagon the prisoner stepped and, taking the rope from the hangman, adjusted it to his neck, and tied a white handkerchief over his eyes. Then Adjutant-General Scammell read the order for the execution in a clear voice, and at its conclusion told André that he might speak if he desired it. The prisoner lifted the handkerchief from his eyes and, bowing courteously to General Greene and his officers, said in firm voice, "All I request of you, gentlemen, is that, while I acknowledge the propriety of my sentence, you will bear me witness that I die like a brave man." In an undertone he murmured, "It will be but a momentary pang." The wagon was driven swiftly from under him, and in a few minutes he ceased to exist. [Illustration: Passage from the Vulture.--(Fac-simile of a Pen-and-ink Sketch by André.)]