Nathan Hale and Revolutionary Iconography

This statue of Nathan Hale stands at the entrance of the Chicago Tribune Building in Chicago, Illinois.  I understand that the last surviving member of the Boston Tea Party is buried in Chicago, and there is a statue honoring George Washington, Haym Solomon and Robert Morris on Wacker Drive.  Chicago was not the scene of any notable Revolutionary War battle, yet these statues serve to knit together the country in its common recollection of the iconographic figures of the war and the era.  This statue is a copy of the one at Yale University.  Interestingly enough, it is reported that there were no contemporary portraits of him, and this was based on description.  Hale was hanged in New York shortly after the Kip's Bay landing by the British.