Battle of Machias (1777)

The Battle of Machias (August 13–14, 1777) was an amphibious assault on the town of Machias in the Massachusetts District of Maine by British forces during the American Revolutionary War. Local militia aided by Indian allies successfully prevented British troops from landing. The raid, led by Commodore Sir George Collier, was executed in an attempt to head off a planned second assault on Fort Cumberland, which had been besieged in November 1776. The British forces landed below Machias, seized a ship, and raided a storehouse.

The result of the raid was disputed. Collier claimed the action was successful in destroying military stores for an attack on Fort Cumberland (although such stores had not been delivered to Machias), while the defenders claimed that they had successfully prevented the capture of Machias and driven off the British.

Background

The community of Machias, located in the Massachusetts District of Maine, was a persistent thorn in the side of British naval authorities since the start of the American Revolutionary War. In June 1775, its citizens rose up and seized a small naval vessel, and the community had ever since been a base for privateering.

In 1777, John Allan, an expatriate Nova Scotian, was authorized by the Second Continental Congress to organize an expedition to establish a Patriot presence in the western part of Nova Scotia (present-day New Brunswick). Although Congress authorized him to recruit as many as three thousand men, the Massachusetts government was only prepared to give him a colonel's commission and authority to raise a regiment in eastern Massachusetts to establish a presence in the St.