[41] "Force," Fifth Series, vol. ii., p. 202.
[42] Mr. Field states that the site of Fort Putnam was unfortunately overlooked by the high ground east of it, Greene and his engineers probably not noticing the fact until after the woods were cut down. The official surveys of the ground, made before it was levelled, show no such commanding elevation, the Fort Putnam Hill being as high as any within range; nor can we credit Greene or his officers with fortifying a point which was untenable, or with not observing that it was untenable. As the engineers of 1812 occupied the same site, it could be safely concluded, were no surveys preserved, that it was entirely defensible.
[43] Some important and interesting information relative to the main line at Brooklyn was brought out in 1779 at the examination of Captain John Montressor, before the Parliamentary Committee which investigated Howe's conduct of the war. Montressor was a British army engineer, acting as Howe's aid on Long Island. Being one of the general's witnesses, he naturally made out the American position as strong as possible, but the main facts of his testimony are to be accepted. The examination was in part as follows:
"Q. Can you give a particular account of the state of those [Brooklyn] lines?
A. Yes—the lines were constructed from Wallabout Bay, on one side to a swamp that intersects the land between the main land and Read Hook, which terminates the lines. The lines were about a mile and a half in extent, including the angles, cannon proof, with a chain of five redoubts, or rather fortresses, with ditches, as had also the lines that formed the intervals, raised on the parapet and the counterscarp, and the whole surrounded with the most formidable abbaties.
Q. Were those lines finished on every part, from the swamp formed by the Wallabout on the left, to the swamp on the right?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know the particulars of the left part of the line towards the Wallabout? Have you any reason for knowing that?
A. The line runs straight from the rising ground where Fort Putnam was constructed, in a straight line to the swamp that terminates itself at the bottom of Wallabout Bay.
Q. Was there a possibility of a single man's passing round the left part of the line?