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 you that I am confined to my bed with a raging fever. The critical situation of affairs makes me the more anxious, but I hope, through the assistance of Providence, to be able to ride before the presence of the enemy may make it absolutely necessary;" and he assured the commander-in-chief that his men appeared to be "in exceeding good spirits," and would no doubt be able to render a very good account of the enemy should they land on Long Island. On the 16th there was no change for the better in his condition, but on the contrary Livingston, his aid, reported that he had "a very bad night of it;" and in a day or two he was removed to New York, to the house of John Inglis now the intersection of Ninth Street and Broadway where with rest and care he slowly passed the crisis of his illness.[77] [Footnote 77: _Greene's Life of Greene_, vol. i.] On the 20th Washington gave orders to General Sullivan, who had recently returned from Canada, to take the command upon Long Island, until General Greene's state of health should permit him to resume it.[78] [Footnote 78: _General Orders, August 20, 1776._--... "General Sullivan is to take command upon Long Island till General Greene's state of health will permit him to resume it, and Brigadier Lord Stirling is to take charge of General Sullivan's division till he returns to it again."] CHAPTER III. THE TWO ARMIES.