Massachusetts begins ill-fated Penobscot Expedition

On July 24, 1779, a naval expeditionary force commissioned by the Massachusetts General Assembly departs Boothbay, Maine, headed for the Penobscot peninsula, where British forces had recently established a small fort and trading post. The attack, and subsequent three-week-long siege, would end disastrously for the Americans with one of the worst naval defeats in the country's history.

Launched by the Massachusetts Assembly without consulting either Continental political or military authorities, the Penobscot expedition was tasked with capturing the 750-man British garrison at Castine on the Penobscot peninsula in Maine, then a province of Massachusetts. Comprised of 19 warships, 24 transport ships and more than 1,000 mostly untrained militiamen, it was commanded by Commodore Dudley Saltonstall, Adjutant General Peleg Wadsworth, Brigadier General Solomon Lovell and Lieutenant Colonel Paul Revere.

The Massachusetts forces, which had been reinforced in Boothbay, arrived at Penobscot on July 25. Despite having a clear advantage in numbers and firepower, they proceeded to launch a series of inconclusive land and sea attacks. Rather than pressing their advantage, they stalled and settled into a three-week siege, allowing the British plenty of time to send for reinforcements.

On August 13, the long-awaited day of attack, those reinforcements arrived, in the form of seven British warships commanded by Sir George Collier. The expedition's land commander, Brig. Gen. Lovell, began to retreat, expecting Saltonstall to engage the naval forces in battle.

But Saltonstall did not fight for long. The naval engagement concluded in total disaster one day later, when he surprised both Patriot and British commanders by fleeing upriver and burning his own ships. The Patriots lost in excess of 470 men, as well as numerous Continental Navy and Massachusetts ships that were burned during the retreat. The British achieved their victory at a cost of only 13 men.

Saltonstall and Paul Revere later faced court martial because of the fiasco. Saltonstall lost his commission, but Revere won acquittal. By contrast, Peleg Wadsworth, who served as Revere’s second-in-command, won acclaim for his performance in the engagement. He had organized the retreat, which was the only well-executed aspect of the mission. The failed Penobscot Expedition was considered the worst naval disaster in American history until the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, more than 160 years later.