Capture of Eastport and Moose Island

The capture of Eastport and Moose Island on 11 July 1814 was the opening operation of Britain’s systematic occupation of eastern Maine — a campaign that would see the entire coast east of the Penobscot River brought under British control for the remainder of the war and beyond.

The force assembled was overwhelming by design: Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Pilkington commanded approximately 2,000 troops, transported by a naval squadron under Captain Sir Thomas Hardy (Nelson’s flag captain at Trafalgar, now commanding HMS Ramillies, a 74-gun ship of the line) and Rear Admiral Edward Griffith. The intent was not to fight but to make resistance unthinkable.

Major Perley Putnam commanded the garrison of Fort Sullivan with approximately 80 militia. Faced with 2,000 regulars and a ship of the line, Putnam surrendered without firing a shot. The decision was the only rational one available — 80 militia against 2,000 veterans backed by naval guns would have produced a massacre without affecting the outcome.

The British required the civilian population to swear an oath of allegiance to the Crown or leave. Most remained and swore the oath. British administration was established, customs duties were collected, and the town functioned under military government for the duration of the war — and, remarkably, for nearly four years afterward. Eastport was not returned to the United States until 1818, well after the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent, due to lingering disputes over the border.

The Eastport operation demonstrated the British strategic approach in Maine: overwhelming force applied with minimal violence, followed by the imposition of orderly administration. The customs revenue collected during the occupation was later used to endow Dalhousie University in Halifax — an irony of imperial bookkeeping that continues to be noted.