Hi Bernard, I just read the piece in the Globe and am thrilled to hear of your plan to write about the Penobscot Expedition. I’m a Maine native, now in Mass., and have been hearing about “the greatest US naval defeat until Pearl Harbor” for years. One book you’ll want to track down, if you don’t already have it, is George Buker’s “The Penobscot Expedition” put out by the Naval Institute Press a couple years ago. My Dad ran into the author last summer in Sandy Point, Maine, just across the river from the Bagaduce Peninsula, and picked up a copy from him. If you can’t track one down, I’ll happily lend you mine. It is meticulously researched. Anyhow, love the Sharpe books! –Mike
PS, I won’t hold your lawyer jabs against you, though I am currently studying law in western Mass. I like that Lincoln joke. My favorite is: what do you call 500 lawyers on the bottom of the ocean? … A start.