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Maine's role in the American Revolution has traditionally been obscured by the fact that it was part of Massachusetts during the conflict and did not become a state in its own right until 1820. Thousands of men from what is now Maine served in the Revolutionary War, but they did so alongside men from Massachusetts and in units identified as Massachusetts regiments. Together these men fought in nearly every key engagement of the war, including: the siege of Boston, invasion of Canada, and defense of New York in 1775-76, and the battles of Trenton, Princeton, Hubbardton, Saratoga, Monmouth, Rhode Island, Newtown, Stony Point, and finally, Yorktown. Although much of Maine's contribution to the Revolutionary War occurred outside its borders, significant events like the seizure of the Margaretta in Machias, and the British destruction of Falmouth (Portland), brought the war home to Maine. Benedict Arnold's epic 1775 march to Quebec and the ill fated Penobscot expedition of 1779 were also significant events that occurred in Maine. The service and sacrifice of Maine's Revolutionary patriots has been overlooked for far too long and is the focus of this book.
In the late eighteenth century, the area that would become the state of Maine was still part of Massachusetts - a colony of a colony within the sprawling British empire. This first comprehensive account of the Revolution "downeast" is the story of a people initially too preoccupied with day-to-day survival to pay much attention to the rising temper of imperial controversy. When war did erupt, many Maine colonists hoped that their geographical isolation and the presence of Native tribes - many of whom were longstanding British foes - would protect them from royal forces in nearby Nova Scotia. But this was not to be. Soon enemy privateers plundered the region's coastal settlements and shipping, and in 1779 the British established a base at the mouth of the Penobscot River. Heartened by the British presence, local loyalists sprang into action and transformed a revolution into a bitter civil war. For Maine, as for many other areas of the rebelling colonies, the struggle with England proved to be a divisive ordeal that heightened prewar social, economic, and political differences and created new ones. James S. Leamon notes that Maine's revolutionary experience can best be understood in the context of other conflicted regions - Georgia, Long Island, Maryland's Delmarva Peninsula, and the Carolina backcountry - where disrupted economies, British incursions, guerrilla warfare, and shifting loyalties defined the Revolution.