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The Battle of Machias (August 13–14, 1777) was an amphibious assault on the Massachusetts town of Machias (in present-day eastern 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 outcome of the raid was disputed. Collier claimed that 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 small community of Machias, located in the eastern district of Massachusetts that is now the state 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.〔Duncan, pp. 211–217〕 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 3,000 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. John River valley. Allan based his effort in Machias, and had by June landed some 40 men in the area.〔Leamon, pp. 90–91〕 However, British authorities in Halifax had received some intelligence of Allan's intended mission,〔 and a larger British force arrived at the St. John River on June 23. Men Allan had left at the settlements near the mouth of the river skirmished with the British but then withdrew upriver. Allan was forced to make a difficult overland journey back to Machias after his small force retreated up the river. He was joined on this journey by a number of sympathetic Maliseet Indians that he had persuaded to join the American cause.〔Leamon, p. 92〕 In early August the Massachusetts Provisional Congress voted to disband forces recruited for Allan's expedition, because of the imminent threat posed by the army of General John Burgoyne in upstate New York.〔''Acts and Resolves'', pp. 87–90〕 Papers documenting Allan's fairly elaborate plans, including a projected attack on Fort Cumberland, were taken during the action on the St. John River, and fell into the hands of Captain Sir George Collier, second in command to Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot in the naval station at Halifax.〔Gwyn, p. 64〕 This spurred Collier to act, since there had already been one attempt on Fort Cumberland the previous year.〔 He therefore organized an assault on Machias, Allan's base of operations and the source of many of his recruits. Because Collier and the commander of land forces at Halifax, General Eyre Massey,〔Gwyn, pp. 60–61〕 did not get along, Collier decided to launch the expedition without taking on any British Army troops.〔 He sailed from Halifax in late July in the frigate , accompanied by the brig , planning to use the marines aboard those ships in ground operations. He was joined by the frigate and the sloop while making the passage to Machias.〔Gwyn, p. 65〕 The defense of Machias consisted of local militia under the command of Colonel Jonathan Eddy, the leader of the 1776 attack on Fort Cumberland. He had been warned that the British were organizing an attack. The militia laid a log boom across the Machias River, and constructed several earthen redoubts further upriver, armed with cannons taken from local privateers.〔 The defense was coincidentally reinforced by 40 to 50 Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscots that Colonel Allan had called to Machias to explain what had gone wrong with his expedition.〔Leamon, p. 93〕〔Mancke, p. 103〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Machias (1777)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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