Capture of Castine and the Penobscot Expedition

The British capture of Castine and the subsequent occupation of eastern Maine in the autumn of 1814 is one of the war’s most revealing and least remembered episodes. In the space of a few weeks, a British expeditionary force from Halifax seized the entire coast of present-day Maine east of the Penobscot River, occupied it for eight months, established a functioning colonial administration, collected customs duties, and departed only when the Treaty of Ghent required it – taking the revenue with them. The ease of the conquest, and the absence of any serious American attempt to reverse it, tells a story that sits uncomfortably alongside the narrative of American resilience.

The operation was conceived by Lieutenant Governor Sir John Coape Sherbrooke of Nova Scotia and Rear Admiral Edward Griffith. With Napoleon defeated and veteran regiments available, the British saw an opportunity to secure the long-disputed territory between the Penobscot River and the New Brunswick border – an area that Britain had historically claimed and that had been a source of friction since the Revolution. The region was also strategically important: it lay adjacent to the Bay of Fundy and the approaches to Halifax, and its harbours could support naval operations along the New England coast.

Sherbrooke assembled a formidable force: approximately 3,000 regulars drawn from the 29th, 62nd, and 98th Regiments of Foot, with Royal Artillery support, embarked in a powerful naval squadron that included two 74-gun ships of the line (HMS Bulwark and Dragon) and several frigates. The expedition sailed from Halifax on 26 August 1814.

The British arrived at Castine, at the mouth of the Penobscot, on 1 September. The American garrison at Fort Porter – a small, neglected fortification – numbered perhaps 100 men. At the sight of the British squadron, the garrison spiked their guns, blew up their magazine, and retreated upriver without offering resistance. The British landed unopposed. Some Castine residents, whose commercial ties to Halifax and New Brunswick were stronger than their attachment to distant Massachusetts, welcomed the occupation.

Sherbrooke immediately established a customs house and began collecting duties on commerce passing through the port. He issued a proclamation assuring the population that those who remained peaceable, surrendered their weapons, and did not communicate with American forces would be protected and treated as British subjects. Most complied. The occupied territory was administered as “New Ireland” – reviving a colonial-era name for the region.

Detachments were dispatched upriver. At Hampden, approximately thirty miles above Castine, a small British force encountered the only significant American resistance of the campaign. Captain Charles Morris of the USS Adams, a 28-gun corvette undergoing repairs at Hampden, had organised a scratch defence with his ship’s crew and local militia under Brigadier General John Blake. The Battle of Hampden on 3 September lasted barely thirty minutes. The militia broke and fled; Morris was forced to burn Adams to prevent her capture. Blake surrendered on parole. British casualties at Hampden totalled two killed.

The British then occupied Bangor, where the selectmen negotiated terms to prevent the destruction of ships and property. A bond of $30,000 was posted, and four vessels under construction were promised to the British for completion and delivery to Castine. The British also seized or destroyed seventeen American ships throughout the Penobscot region.

For eight months – from September 1814 to April 1815 – the Penobscot River was effectively an international boundary. Everything east of it was under British military administration. Customs duties were collected. Civil order was maintained. The population, while not enthusiastic about the occupation, offered no organised resistance. Massachusetts, of which Maine was then a district, made no serious effort to recapture the territory.

This last point is significant. Massachusetts was controlled by the Federalist Party, which had opposed the war from the beginning. The state’s failure to defend its eastern territory reflected both practical limitations (the militia was inadequate for the task) and political reality (Federalist New England had no enthusiasm for “Mr. Madison’s War”). The abandonment contributed directly to Maine’s subsequent movement for statehood, achieved in 1820 – the people of the District of Maine concluded, not unreasonably, that Massachusetts could not be relied upon to defend them.

When the British departed under the Treaty of Ghent in April 1815, they took with them over ten thousand pounds sterling in customs revenue collected at Castine. This money, known as the “Castine Fund,” was subsequently used to establish a military library in Halifax and to found Dalhousie College – an institution that continues to operate today as Dalhousie University, one of Nova Scotia’s most prestigious seats of learning. It is funded, in its origins, by American customs duties collected during the British occupation of Maine.

The Castine episode is largely absent from American popular accounts of the war. This is perhaps understandable: a narrative centred on American resilience and ultimate triumph has little room for an eight-month British occupation of American territory that was reversed only by a peace treaty, not by American military action. But the historical record is clear, and it tells a story that is essential to any honest assessment of the war’s outcome.