398 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.

action of the authorities. With regard to troops and munitions of war, the city was equally unprepared to repulse the attack of a powerful and determined foe. The various United States forts in the harbor contained guns which required the services of at least 4,000 men, whereas the regular force in the vicinity did not exceed 1,600, mostly raw recruits, of whom probably not one hundred were acquainted with the use of great guns. And even this force, being distributed among the various forts from Sandy Hook to Greenbush, could never be concentrated at any given point to meet the advancing enemy without a total abandonment of the works. Nor could the inadequacy of the regular force be supplied by the local militia, for the brigade of artillery contained barely 1,000 effective men, a considerable portion of whom were principally conversant with infantry tactics; while fifty of the corps were even then stationed at Sag Harbor, for the defence of that place. The 13,500 militia of the State, ordered to be held in readiness for its defence, by the General Government, were only undisciplined raw troops, whom it would be almost impossible to concentrate at any point in time to defeat the objects of an enemy. In addition to this, the supply of munitions and equipments of war, both those belonging to the General Government and State, were entirely inadequate to the crisis. Such was the perilous situation in which the citizens of New York found their goodly city—on awakening from the “sweet dream of peace,” into which they had been lulled by then pending negotiations, which promised a speedy termination to the war. But, shaking off the lethargy into which they had been well-nigh fatally betrayed, they bestirred themselves energetically in the work of preparation and defence. The principal measures recommended by the Committee of Defence, for the protection of the city against attacks by land, were as follows:

1. The immediate erection of two fortified camps, one on the heights of Brooklyn, and the other on the heights of Harlem, which it was presumed could soon be constructed by the voluntary labor of the citizens, and the militia who were ordered to occupy them.

2. That the General Government should be requested to direct the completion of unfinished works, and the construction of now fortifications in the vicinity of the city; as also the augmentation