Penobscot Expedition

Background. British war planners sought greater control over New England after the 1777 Machias raid and Burgoyne's failed Saratoga campaign. The Loyalist John Nutting, who had piloted Sir George Collier's expedition against Machias, promoted the idea of a British military presence in Maine to Lord Germain, describing the Castine peninsula as having a harbor that could hold the entire British Navy and be defended by 1,000 men and two ships. Germain ordered Clinton to send a detachment to take post on the Penobscot River, though Nutting's ship was captured and the 1778 colony scheme lapsed before being revived.

British Landing and Fortification. On June 17, 1779, some 700 British Army troops under Brigadier General Francis McLean landed on the coast of the District of Maine and began fortifying the Majabigwaduce Peninsula (Castine, Maine) around Fort George in upper Penobscot Bay. Their goals were establishing a military presence on that part of the coast and founding the colony of New Ireland.

American Expedition and Siege. In response, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, supported by the Second Continental Congress, raised an expedition to drive McLean's troops out. On July 19, 1779, an American fleet of 19 warships and 25 support vessels under Commodore Dudley Saltonstall sailed from Boston, carrying more than 1,000 marines and militiamen under Brigadier General Solomon Lovell plus 100 artillerists under Lieutenant Colonel Paul Revere. Lovell's troops landed on July 25 and laid siege to Fort George, an engagement hampered by disagreements between Lovell and Saltonstall.

Defeat and Aftermath. On August 11, Lovell pressed Saltonstall to attack, warning that further delay would be infamous. The next day Saltonstall launched a naval attack, but Collier's British relief fleet arrived and attacked the American ships. A committee of inquiry blamed poor coordination between land and sea forces and Saltonstall's failure to engage; he was dismissed from the Continental Navy for ineptitude, and Revere was dismissed from the Massachusetts Militia. The expedition proved the United States' worst naval defeat until Pearl Harbor in 1941.