Naval Defeat and Retreat
- When
- August 12, 1779
- Where
- Penobscot Bay off Majabigwaduce
- Part of
- Penobscot Expedition
On August 12, 1779, Saltonstall's belated naval attack met Collier's relief fleet, and the American ships were destroyed in the war's worst American naval defeat.
On August 11, 1779, Lovell urged Saltonstall to attack, reporting that the moment the fleet entered the harbor the British would destroy their own ships. The next day Saltonstall launched a naval attack against the British fort, but Collier's British relief fleet arrived and attacked the American ships. The expedition proved the United States' worst naval defeat until Pearl Harbor 162 years later in 1941.
Sources
- Penobscot Expedition Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-15
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.