Hampden

At Hampden, British forces clashed with American defenders as part of a larger effort by the crown to seize what is now Maine and turn it into a colony called New Ireland during the War of 1812. Sherbrooke, commanding troops sent from Halifax, Nova Scotia, oversaw the founding of this territory, which endured for eight months before the conflict's close. Money raised from the brief colonial venture went toward establishing a military library in Halifax as well as funding Dalhousie College.

Once British troops pulled back from their stronghold at Castine and returned to Nova Scotia, the eastern portion of Maine remained under American control. Even so, residents' persistent sense of exposure to attack later contributed to a push for Maine to break away from Massachusetts, of which it was then a district, and gain recognition as its own state. When British forces departed following the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent, it marked the close of two hundred years of armed struggle over the region.

Prelude: Capture of Castine and Belfast

On August 26, 1814, ships from the Royal Navy's Halifax station set out to seize Machias, a coastal settlement in the Down East region. Five warships made up this force: the 74-gun Dragon, the 40-gun Endymion, the 38-gun Bacchante, the 18-gun Sylph, along with a sizable tender and ten transport vessels. Together these carried approximately 3,000 British regular troops, drawn from the 29th, 60th, 62nd, and 98th regiments plus a Royal Artillery company.

Sir John Sherbrooke, serving at the time as lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia, held overall command of this undertaking. Beneath him, Major General Gerard Gosselin directed the land forces while Rear Admiral Edward Griffith Colpoys oversaw naval operations.

Behind this mission lay a clear purpose: reclaiming British sovereignty over the portion of Maine lying east of the Penobscot River, territory the British had christened "New Ireland," while simultaneously securing communications between Halifax and Quebec. Separating this "New Ireland" from the rest of New England had long been an ambition shared by the British government and its neighboring colonies, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, dating back to when Brigadier General Francis McLean seized control of Maine during the Revolution.

While underway, the squadron encountered the 18-gun Rifleman and received word that Captain Charles Morris's vessel, the 28-gun USS Adams, sat undergoing repairs at Hampden along the Penobscot. This news prompted Sherbrooke to alter course toward Castine, situated where the Penobscot met the sea. Meeting up off Matinicus Island, he strengthened his fleet further with the addition of the 74-gun Bulwark, the 38-gun Tenedos, the 18-gun Peruvian, an 18-gun schooner, and the 14-gun HM Schooner Pictou.

By September 1, the assembled fleet had entered Castine's cove. Facing this show of force, the local militia simply dispersed. A small detachment of 28 U.S. Army soldiers, led by Lieutenant Andrew Lewis of the 40th Infantry, disabled their four 24-pounder guns, destroyed their powder magazine, and retreated northward, hauling two field pieces with them.

Sherbrooke and Griffith moved quickly to issue a formal proclamation, promising residents that compliance, meaning peaceful conduct, continuation of normal business, and the handing over of all weapons, would earn them treatment as protected British subjects. The proclamation further guaranteed fair compensation for any goods or services rendered to the occupying forces. Following this, Gosselin led the bulk of the 29th regiment across the bay to secure Belfast, safeguarding the flank for operations still to come. The townspeople offered no resistance to this occupation, though roughly 1,200 militiamen assembled three miles away to observe how events would unfold.

Battle of Hampden

Late in August, Morris brought his vessel upriver past Buckstown, today's Bucksport, and dropped anchor where the Souadabscook Stream meets the Penobscot at Hampden, a spot on the western bank roughly thirty miles from the sea. Expecting trouble, he set up nine guns on a hill nearby and another fourteen at the wharf beside his damaged ship. With a crew of 150 under his command, Morris sent word asking Brigadier General John Blake, who led the Eastern Militia stationed at Brewer, for assistance. Blake arrived with approximately 550 militiamen, positioning them at the center of a defensive formation stretched along a ridge that faced south toward Castine.

Lieutenant Lewis then arrived bringing roughly two dozen regulars along with two field pieces. He added a carronade to his arsenal and took position along the western flank, covering the north-south road where the enemy was expected to advance.

Barrie put his men ashore at Bald Hill Cove, three miles from Hampden, late on September 2, holding them there until daylight. Amid rain and fog on the morning of September 3, the British advance toward Hampden began under Lt. Colonel Henry John. At Pitcher's Brook, now called Reeds Brook, advance parties encountered opposition, mostly from the artillery Lewis had positioned there, yet John pushed additional troops forward and his men fought their way across the bridge. Before long the entire British force stood ready to press onward against the American line atop the hill. The sight of the oncoming British troops threw the defenders into panic, and the militia at the center collapsed, scattering into the woods in the direction of Bangor. Both Morris on the left flank and Lewis on the right discovered their positions could no longer be held. Facing imminent capture, Morris disabled his cannons and lit a fuse running to the Adams. The vessel exploded with her flags still flying, destroyed before the British could seize her intact. Lewis, too, disabled his guns before retreating northward. Morris led his sailors and the ship's band on a journey to Bangor, then cut westward through difficult terrain toward the Kennebec River, reaching their home base at Portsmouth, New Hampshire around September 9. Two weeks later, every single sailor had checked in, with not one man unaccounted for, a result that gave Morris considerable satisfaction.

Meanwhile, Barrie assigned 200 men to secure Hampden itself while leading the remainder of his forces in pursuit of the fleeing Americans toward Bangor. Eighty leading citizens from the Hampden area were held overnight as captives, though the British released most of them on parole the following day.

Occupation of Bangor and Hampden

At noon on September 5, British forces marched into Bangor and found townspeople had already hung out white flags in surrender. Barrie insisted that residents supply his men with food and lodging, a demand the town met without resistance, since as one account put it, the commodore was "a churlish, brutish monster" who threatened to unleash his troops and torch the settlement unless locals worked harder to keep his soldiers fed. Soldiers took up quarters in the courthouse, a pair of schools, and two spacious homes, and Barrie issued strict orders against drinking. Despite this, his men ransacked shops and homes throughout South Bangor and managed to get their hands on a supply of brandy, prompting Barrie to order an officer to pour out every drop of liquor in town. A journalist covering the events later described the horror of it all, noting that the town had survived the night but hoped never to witness such scenes again, as enemy soldiers stripped every store bare, invaded private homes, smashed windows and dishware, and ruined whatever they could not carry off.

As darkness fell, the British set fire to fourteen American merchant vessels docked at Bangor and in nearby Brewer. Hoping to prevent further destruction that might spread into a wider blaze, the town's selectmen struck a deal with Barrie, offering a bond worth $30,000 and pledging to finish building four ships still on the stocks before handing them over at Castine. Barrie accepted these terms, though he also confiscated the six vessels that remained, a packet boat, four schooners, and a smaller craft, dispatching them downriver. Before leaving Bangor on September 6, he released 191 American prisoners who called the town home, Blake among them, but only after each man agreed in writing never to bear arms against Britain again. Local officials later calculated that this single day and a half of occupation had cost the town roughly $45,000 in damages.

Barrie's men also descended on Hampden, subjecting it to similar plunder. Vandals struck a local church, while the British claimed the merchant vessel Victory and the privateer Commodore Decatur as spoils of war. When a group of Hampden residents came before Barrie asking that their belongings be spared, invoking his sense of "humanity," he answered coldly that he possessed none for them, declaring that his purpose was to burn, sink, and destroy, and reminding them that their town had fallen by storm, which by the customs of war meant it could rightfully be reduced to ashes and its people put to the sword, though he would allow them to live even as he intended to burn their homes. In the end no houses were actually burned, but word of Barrie's harsh treatment reached Castine, where several Hampden residents lodged complaints with Sherbrooke. He responded by directing that private property be left alone unless truly extreme circumstances demanded otherwise. Barrie also extracted a bond of $14,000 from Hampden's residents tied to several unfinished vessels still under construction, with the stipulation that these ships be delivered to Castine by November 1 once completed. Town officials would later place the total cost of Hampden's losses at $44,000.

From there the British pushed south toward Frankfort, Maine, where they demanded a substantial quantity of livestock along with every weapon and round of ammunition the settlement possessed. The townspeople dragged their feet in complying, and when Barrie departed on September 7, he vowed he would return to punish the town for its delay. That threat never materialized, however, and aside from a handful of largely harmless attempts by American snipers to harass the British column as it passed through Prospect, Maine, the engagement drew to a close.

Aftermath

The sting of this defeat lingered in eastern Maine and helped fuel lasting resentment toward the British there, resentment that would surface again during the Aroostook War of 1838-1839. This lingering bitterness also fed into the push after the war for Maine to become its own state, since Massachusetts had proven unable to defend the area, and it spurred construction of Fort Knox, a costly granite fortification built at the Penobscot River's mouth beginning in the 1840s.

In 1816, Bangor became the site of courts-martial for General Blake along with two other officers involved in the loss: Lt. Col. Andrew Grant, from Hampden, and Maj. Joshua Chamberlain, from Brewer, who happened to be the grandfather of the Civil War general who shared his name. Both Blake and Chamberlain walked away exonerated, though Grant was stripped of his commission.

Blake, already advanced in years, faced trial first and was cleared of all wrongdoing. Afterward, he turned around and pressed charges against the two men below him, a move that may have been calculated to salvage his own reputation. Grant's court found him guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer in the face of the enemy, and he was barred from ever again holding elected rank within the militia. According to one account, he fled the fighting altogether, shedding his uniform for civilian dress before he was finally caught and recognized.