The Worst U.S. Naval Disaster You've Never Heard Of

The Penobscot Expedition may not be mentioned in your standard history book.

But when it ended back in 1779, scores of ships had been sunk, hundreds of soldiers were missing and Revolutionary War hero Paul Revere was facing charges of cowardice and incompetence.

In his new book, The Fort, British historical novelist Bernard Cornwell tells the amazing story of the expedition.

It was supposed to be a routine ousting of a small British fleet that had dug in on the shore of Penobscot Bay, in what eventually would become Maine.

It turned out to be anything but.

The author first came across the story while doing some research on a solider named John Moore. Cornwell discovered that when he was 18, Moore fought at Penobscot Bay.

"And I thought, 'Where? What? How? When?' I knew nothing about it," Cornwell tells NPR's Guy Raz.

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