Battle of Hampden

The quiet town of Hampden, on the western bank of the Penobscot River, was the site of one of the most humiliating American defeats of the War of eighteen twelve, and an event that would unexpectedly accelerate Maine's path to becoming its own state.

By the summer of eighteen fourteen, Britain had seized the initiative in North America. Napoleon had been defeated in Europe, freeing veteran British troops for operations in America. In late August, a Royal Navy squadron swept into Penobscot Bay, easily capturing the town of Castine and establishing control of the entire lower Penobscot River. The British goal, frankly audacious, was to carve out a new British colony called New Ireland from what is now eastern and central Maine.

With Castine secured, British forces pushed upriver toward Hampden. Their objective was the American warship USS Adams, a twenty-eight-gun frigate that had run aground and was being repaired at the docks. On September third, eighteen fourteen, a British force landed in fog so thick the Americans could not see them until they were nearly at the militia's line. About five hundred and fifty American militia under Brigadier General John Blake had dug in to hold the position. When disciplined British regulars emerged from the mist and charged with fixed bayonets, the center of the American line collapsed. The Adams was burned by her own crew to prevent capture. The British then marched on to Bangor, which surrendered without a fight.

Britain controlled much of eastern Maine for about eight months. The occupation proved bitterly instructive: Massachusetts had done almost nothing to defend its northern district. Local anger boiled. The feeling that Massachusetts was indifferent to Maine's security and welfare poured directly into the movement for statehood. When Maine separated from Massachusetts and entered the Union in eighteen twenty, the memory of Hampden and the year of British occupation was fresh in every legislator's mind.

The battle was a small affair in numbers, but few engagements of the war produced more lasting political consequences.