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4.0 out of 5 stars
"I was one of the many who had never heard of that battle.", September 26, 2010
This review is from: The Penobscot Expedition: Commodore Saltonstall and the Massachusetts Conspiracy of 1779 (Hardcover)
THE PENOBSCOT EXPEDITION: COMMODORE SALTONSTALL AND THE MASSACHUSETTS CONSPIRACY OF 1779 is a work of serious historical intent. In his Preface, author George E. Buker, however, candidly admits that when asked in 1996 to lecture about the subject of the book that emerged 14 years later -- the military and naval engagements of July-August 1779, "I was one of the many who had never heard of that battle." But he then redeemed himself by spending the next four years researching and lecturing about the Penobscot Expedition.
At the end of his research, he decided that over two hundred years earlier a Massachusetts State Board of Inquiry had badly botched assigning blame for the greatest American naval disaster before Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Prevailing wisdom was that the Massachusetts militia under Brigadier General Solomon Lovell had fought well and would have expelled the British from their hastily built Fort George, except for one thing. That thing was the refusal of the independent co-commander of the naval forces of 18 American warships, ship Captain also simultaneously fleet Commodore Dudley Saltonstall, to destroy the six British ships anchored in a narrow passage opposing his approach to Fort George.
The failure of the two American commanders to act promptly allowed a British relief squadron from New York to come up and destroy or capture every single American vessel.
Author George E. Buker has two purposes for THE PENOBSCOT EXPEDITION:
(1) to prove that Militia General Lovell lied successfully in his testimony to the Board of Inquiry
and
(2) to demonstrate that Commodore Saltonstall had better reasons for his caution than any landlubbers could ever understand. In my opinion, Buker makes both cases rather well.
Most of his argumentation is about the limitations of large square-rigged vessels sailing in the restricted, rocky dangerous waters of Penobscot Bay. The wind is almost always from the west. To defeat the enemy vessels, the Americans must sail, one by one, directly eastward and into the broadsides of three British warships heavily supported by cannons from Fort George. Saltonstall judged that his forces could destroy the British ships, but taking unacceptably heavy punishment from the cannons of both ships and fort. And once inside the British naval defenses, then what?
The Americans could not just turn around and quickly sail out again. The west wind was against them. They would either have to tack for two or three hours or wait for an ebb tide to float them slowly out of range of the fort's guns. No way!
Anyway, the Commodore reasoned, if I destroy the enemy warships, the fort remains untouched. Let General Lovell make use of the hundreds of marines I will lend him to storm the fort. If the fort falls, the warships must surrender.
And so it went. Lovell would not attack Fort George before Saltonstall had defeated the British warships. And Saltonstall would not attack the ships till Lovell had taken the fort.
As Buker meticulously and laboriously makes his case in favor of Commodore Saltonstall, we readers are drawn along in his wake, learning much sea lore and seamanship in the process. We learn that an attacking ship will not go near another wooden ship that is on fire. Fire spreads easily and nearby ships will explode or go up in flames when fire reaches their magazines. Square-rigged sailing vessels maneuver well when the wind is directly behind them. But they become turtles when sailing into the wind. Elaborate charts make details clear about ships' speed when tacking and when moving with or against tides.
In the end, Saltonstall, for all his caution lost every ship in his fleet except one or two that escaped. He was no Nelson, no Bull Halsey. As soon as the British warships that the Commodore would not attack were free to do so, they joined the fleet from New York in chasing the Americans in a panic flight up the Penobscot River toward Bangor. Saltonstall had good, sound naval reasons for doing so little, but he gambled and lost. Meanwhile the Massachusetts militia escaped blame in Massachusetts. And even the U.S. Congress agreed that the navy under Commodore Saltonstall bore all the blame.
This book makes a couple of simple points. The writing is not inspired, although clear, at least as to naval practice. It is a somewhat better than average book. I rate it 3.5 points, rounding up to 4. Once you have read Buker, turn to the better written, more three-dimensional novel, THE FORT, by Bernard Cornwell. That novel, drawing heavily on Buker's pioneering research, is more lightly fictionalized than most historical novels. It has a better map of Penobscot Bay and the author clarifies what the British and American land and naval commanders were trying to do.
-OOO-
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