at a moment's
warning, if necessary." Upon another alarm, when probably he himself
was indisposed, he directed Colonel Little, the senior regimental
officer present, to superintend the disposition of the troops. His
hastily written letter, penned apparently not long after midnight,
runs as follows:

THURSDAY MORNING [August 8 or 15?]

DEAR SIR--By Express from Col Hand and from Red Hook, and
from on board the Sloop at Governor's Island it is very
evident there was a General Imbarcation of the Troops last
evening from Statten Island--doubtless they'l make a dessent
this morning. Youl please to order all the troops fit for
duty to be at their Alarm posts near an hour sooner than is
common--let their flints arms and ammunition be examined and
everything held in readiness to defend the works or go upon
a detachment. A few minutes past received an Express from
Head Quarters. Youl acquaint the Commanding officers of Col
Hitchcock's Regiment and Col Forman's Regiment of this, and
direct them to observe the same orders, also the Artillery
officers.

I am ys,
N. GREENE.

[Addressed to Col. Little.][76]

[Footnote 76: Original in possession of Chas. J. Little, Esq.,
Cambridge, Mass.]

Greene had been promoted to the rank of major-general on the 9th, and
his old brigade on Long Island given to Brigadier-General John Nixon,
of Massachusetts, who was promoted from a colonelcy at the same time.
A new arrangement of the army was effected, and Brigadier-General
Heard's brigade of five New Jersey regiments was ordered to Long
Island to reinforce Greene. His division, now consisting of these two
brigades--Nixon's and Heard's--numbered, August 15th, two thousand
nine hundred men fit for duty. Parts of two Long Island militia
regiments under Colonels Smith and Remsen which joined him about this
date, and Colonel Gay's Connecticut levies, who had been on that side
since the 1st of August, increased this number to something over
thirty-five hundred.

But Greene was not to be a participator in the approaching scenes. The
prevailing fever which had prostrated so many officers and men seized
him with all but a fatal hold, and he was obliged to relinquish his
command. He clung to it, however, to the last moment in hopes of a
change for the better. "I am very sorry," he wrote to Washington on
the 15th, "that I am under the necessity of acquainting