The Portland Head Light is the oldest lighthouse in Maine and probably the most well-known one in the entire United States. Completed in 1791, under the original mandate of President George Washington, this lighthouse sits on a head of land situated at the entrance to the main channel that leads into Portland Harbor. The Portland Harbor lies within the Casco Bay off the Gulf of Maine. This large Atlantic Ocean gulf extends from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia.


During the Civil War, Confederate raids on shipping going into and out of Portland Harbor had become commonplace. The Portland Head Light tower was raised twenty feet so that ships could see the light sooner.  Although there were not any land battles in the State of Maine during the war, the Battle of Portland Harbor took place in June 1863. This battle would be the northernmost naval battle of the Civil War.

The prelude to the Battle of Portland Harbor occurred on June 25, 1863. A Confederate Navy lieutenant named Charles William Read and his ship, the CSS Tacony, were being pursued by the Union Navy. Over the previous twenty days, Read had captured approximately twenty-two ships that he looted and then ravaged. In order to elude capture, Read overtook a fishing boat named the Archer and, after offloading his supplies and armaments fire, was set to the CSS Tacony.

Read then snuck into Casco Bay on June 26th with the intent to damage the harbor’s commercial shipping capabilities, as well as bombard the city of Portland.

 Read made it to the federal wharf, where he and his crew stealthily boarded a U.S. Revenue Cutter named the Caleb Cushing and tied up the ship’s crew. He then departed with both ships.  However, as luck would have it, the seas became calm. Without any wind, Read was only a short distance beyond the Portland Head Light early the next morning.

Upon seeing the direction, the Caleb Cushing headed, Portland residents believed that the cutter’s Captain, who was from Georgia, had turned traitor and was stealing the ship that was supposed to protect their city.  Approximately 200 volunteers and 38 soldiers from the Seventeenth Maine Infantry who were stationed at nearby Fort Preble commandeered two steamships and gave chase.  The volunteers were armed with muskets from the city's armory, and the soldiers had brought two cannons onboard the ships. As they got within range, they began firing the cannons.

The battle didn’t last very long before Read surrendered. He was under the belief that he didn’t have enough ammunition to win at combat. However, before his surrender he set fire to the Caleb Cushing causing a massive explosion.

As the battle had raged in Casco Bay, many Portland residents took to their rooftops so that they could witness the battle. They were shocked by the extent of the explosion. When setting fire to the Caleb Cushing, Read had been unaware that there were two hidden storerooms onboard this vessel that contained gunpowder or other armaments.

A search of the Archer revealed that the Read and his men possessed over one hundred thousand dollars in bonds that were to be paid once the North and South entered into a peace treaty. Although Read was captured and incarcerated at Fort Preble, he escaped being caught as a pirate because he had been commissioned by the Confederacy and was carrying official papers to that extent.  

Once Portland residents learned the extent of damage that Read and his crew had done as they moved northward up the eastern seaboard, they became outraged.  In fear that Read’s presence in the stockade at Fort Preble would cause the townspeople to riot, Read and his crew were moved to Fort Warren in Boston, Harbor in July. He was later part of a prisoner exchange on October 18, 1864.