r of
Major Daniel Box, Greene's brigade-major (an office corresponding to
the present assistant adjutant-general), whose services were then
highly appreciated. Box first appears as an old British soldier, who
had been wounded in the French war, and afterwards as an organizer and
drill-master of Independent companies in Rhode Island, which
subsequently furnished many fine officers to the Continental army.[40]
In a letter to Colonel Pickering in 1779, Greene speaks of him in
flattering terms, as having been invaluable in the earlier years of
the war. That he was something of an engineer, as well as an
excellent brigade-major, is evident from the fact that he assisted in
marking out the lines around Boston in 1775, and later superintended
the construction of Fort Lee, on the Jersey side. No doubt he had much
to say about the building of the Brooklyn lines, and of the work in
particular which bore his name.

[Footnote 40: MS. letter of General Greene to Colonel Pickering,
August 24, 1779, in possession of Prof. Geo. Washington Greene, East
Greenwich, L.I.]

FORT GREENE.--About three hundred yards to the left of Fort Box, a
short distance above Bond Street, between State and Schermerhorn,
stood Fort Greene, star-shaped, mounting six guns, and provided with a
well and magazines. Colonel Little, its commander, describes it as the
largest of the works on Long Island; and this statement is
corroborated by the fact that its garrison consisted of an entire
regiment, which was not the case with the other forts, and that it was
provided with nearly double the number of pikes. It occupied an
important position on one of the small hills near the centre of that
part of the line lying south-west of Washington Park, and its guns
commanded the approach by the Jamaica highway. Being the principal
work on the line, the engineers, or possibly Little's regiment, named
it after their brigade commander.

OBLONG REDOUBT.--Still further to the left, and on the other side of
the road, a small circular redoubt, called the "Oblong Redoubt," was
thrown up on what was then a piece of rising ground at the corner of
De Kalb and Hudson avenues. The reason of its name is not apparent.
Greene's orders refer to it as the "Oblong Square" and the "Oblong
Redoubt." Major Richard Thorne, of Colonel Remsen's Long Island
militia, speaks of being on guard at "Fort Oblong" all night a short
time before the battle.[41] This redoubt had very nearly direct
comman