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Soon after Hale's arrival at New York, he successfully performed a daring feat. A British sloop, laden with provisions, was anchored in the East River under the protection of the guns of the man-of-war Asia sixty-four. General Heath gave Hale permission to attempt the capture of the supply-vessel. With a few picked men (probably of Glover's brigade, who were largely seamen), as resolute as himself, he proceeded in a whale-boat silently at midnight to the side of the sloop, unobserved by the sentinel on the deck. Hale and his men sprang on board, secured the sentinel, confined the crew below the hatches, raised her anchor, and took her into Coenties Slip just at the dawn of day. Captain Hale was at the helm. The victors were greeted with loud huzzas from a score of voices when the sloop touched the wharf. The stores of provisions of the prize-vessel were distributed among Hale's hungry fellow-soldiers.

We have no information concerning Hale's movements from the time of his capture of the supply-vessel until after the battle of Long Island. He became captain of a company of Connecticut Rangers in May—a corps composed of choice men picked from the different Connecticut regiments, and placed under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Knowlton, who had distinguished himself in the battle of Bunker's (Breed's) Hill. They were known as "Congress's Own."