Showing posts with label Fort George Ponobscot Bay Expedition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fort George Ponobscot Bay Expedition. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

Fort George and the Penobscot Bay Fiasco 1779

 

   One of the more unknown and forgotten battles of the American Revolution occurred in Castine Main




  Fort George  was built in 1779 by the British during the American Revolutionary War in Castine, Maine built  on high ground over looking Panobscot bay on the Bagaduce Peninsula. It was the site of the Massachusetts Penobscot Expedition, a disastrous attempt in July and August of 1779 to retake Castine. The British re-occupied Castine in the War of 1812 from September 1814 to April 1815, rebuilding it and establishing smaller forts around it. They withdrew after the war  and following a brief period of American use, the fort was abandoned and demolished in 1819.







  Fort George is a  square earthwork, about 200 feet on each side.  There are four bastions at the corners.  Parts of the fort that have not survived includethe palisade, moat, and gateway. The fort is one of a series of defenses erected by the British in 1779, which  included the digging of a canal across much of the neck separating the Bagaduce Peninsula from the rest of the mainland.



 The site of the fort's remains is now a park of 7 acres owned by the state and maintained by the town. Within the fort is a baseball diamond and a soccer field.  The few stone structures within it are crumbling to ruin.  


  The Fort is the location for Bernard Cornwell's 2010 book " The Fort",about the Penobscot Expedition.  For more details of the siege and fiasco:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penobscot_Expedition