his
could not be done by soldiers without compensation, especially as it
would be the work of four weeks." According to tradition, the
inhabitants levelled them by Howe's orders. General Robertson
testified in 1779 that "there were no vestiges of the lines soon after
they were taken." Cornwallis on the same occasion said that, being
detached to Newtown after the battle, he had "no opportunity of going
to Brooklyn till the lines were nearly demolished." But with the
assistance of Lieutenant Ratzer's accurate topographical map of New
York and Brooklyn of 1766-7, the Hessian map published in vol. ii. of
the Society's _Memoirs_, the plan of the lines thrown up in the 1812
war, and other documents, the forts of 1776 can readily be located.
Ratzer's map shows all the elevations where works would naturally be
put; and the Hessian map, which is a reduction of Ratzer's, adds the
works. The accuracy of the latter, which heretofore could not be
proved, is now established by the fact that the position of the forts
corresponds to the location assigned them relatively in Greene's
orders. There can be little doubt that this map was made from actual
surveys soon after the battle, and that the shape as well as the site
of the works and lines is preserved in it. Another guide is the 1812
line as marked out by Lieutenant Gadsden, of the Engineer Corps. A
copy of the original plan of this line, furnished by the War
Department, shows a close correspondence with the Hessian draft. The
same points are fortified in each case. Fort "Fireman" of 1812
occupies the site, or very nearly the site, of Fort Box; Fort
"Masonic," that of Fort Greene; Redoubt "Cummings," that of the Oblong
Redoubt; and "Fort Greene," that of Fort Putnam. The site of the
"redoubt on the left" was inclosed, in 1812, in the outer intrenchment
which was carried around the brow of the hill. Although the British
obliterated all marks of the Brooklyn defences of 1776, we thus find
nature and the records enabling us to re-establish them to-day.]

[Illustration: SKETCH OF THE BROOKLYN WORKS IN 1776.

FACSIMILE FROM THE STILES DIARY

Yale College Library.

_"From one who was stationed at Red Hook all last Summer together with
a Map of the ground, I learn our Fortifications there were as I here
draw them out on the Peninsula around Brooklyn Church." Dr. Stiles,
March 21, 1777._

_J. Bien Photo. Lith. N.Y._]

As to its name, we must assume that it was called Fort Box in hono