The Penobscot Expedition was the largest American naval expedition of the American Revolutionary War and is sometimes thought the United States' worst naval defeat until Pearl Harbor. The fighting took place both on land and on sea, in what is today Castine, Maine.
In June 1779, British Army forces established a series of fortifications centered on a fort located on the Majabigwaduce Peninsula in Penobscot Bay, with the goals of establishing a military presence on that part of the coast and beginning a new colony to be known as New Ireland. In response, the state of Massachusetts, with some support from the Continental Congress, raised an expedition to drive the British out.
The Americans landed troops in late July and attempted to establish a siege of the British fort in a series of actions seriously hampered by disagreements over control of the expedition between Commodore Dudley Saltonstall and General Solomon Lovell. The operation ended in disaster when a British fleet under the command of Sir George Collier arrived on August 13th, driving the American fleet to total self-destruction up the Penobscot River. The survivors of the American expedition were forced to make an overland journey back to more-populated parts of Massachusetts with minimal food and armament.
Read more about Penobscot Expedition: Background, British Forces Arrive, American Reaction, Landing, Assault, Siege, Casualties, Aftermath, Legacy
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