The Maine Campaign

The Forgotten Occupation

The British 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.

“The occupation of eastern Maine served multiple purposes. It secured the approach to Halifax, established a territorial bargaining chip for the peace negotiations, and demonstrated that Britain could seize and hold American territory at will. The operation was executed with professional efficiency and minimal casualties.”— Andrew Lambert, The Challenge

The Expedition

Lieutenant Governor Sir John Coape Sherbrooke assembled approximately 3,000 regulars from the 29th, 62nd, and 98th Regiments, embarked in a powerful naval squadron including two 74-gun ships of the line. The expedition sailed from Halifax on 26 August 1814. Resistance was negligible. The garrison at Fort Porter in Castine numbered perhaps 100 men — they spiked their guns and fled at the sight of the squadron. The only significant engagement, the Battle of Hampden on 3 September, lasted thirty minutes.

Sherbrooke immediately established civil administration. A customs house was opened at Castine, and the territory was administered as “New Ireland” — reviving a colonial-era name. Inhabitants who surrendered their weapons were promised protection. Most complied. Some Castine residents, whose commercial ties to Halifax were longstanding, welcomed the occupation.

Eight Months of British Rule

For eight months the Penobscot was effectively an international boundary. Everything east of it was under British military administration. Massachusetts, of which Maine was then a district, made no serious effort to recapture the territory — reflecting both practical limitations and the political reality that Federalist New England had no enthusiasm for the war.

“The occupation of Maine demonstrated something that American popular memory has been reluctant to acknowledge: significant portions of the American population, particularly in Federalist New England, had no enthusiasm for the war and offered no organised resistance to British occupation. The myth of universal patriotic resistance is exactly that — a myth.”— Jon Latimer, 1812: War with America

The Castine Fund and Dalhousie University

When the British departed under the Treaty of Ghent in April 1815, they took over £10,000 in customs revenue collected at Castine. This money, known as the “Castine Fund,” was used to found Dalhousie College — an institution that continues today as Dalhousie University, one of Nova Scotia’s most prestigious seats of learning. One of Canada’s leading universities is funded, in its origins, by American customs duties collected during the British occupation of Maine.

“The occupation of eastern Maine is largely absent from American popular accounts of the war. This is understandable: a narrative centred on American resilience has little room for an eight-month British occupation that was reversed only by a peace treaty, not by American military action.”— Donald R. Hickey, A Forgotten Conflict

The episode contributed directly to Maine’s 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.

“The Maine campaign reveals the limits of American state capacity during the War of 1812. The federal government could not defend its own territory, and the state governments most directly affected had no political will to do so. It was a failure of governance as much as of arms.”— Jeremy Black, The War of 1812 in the Age of Napoleon