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| Happy 4th of July, MMers! |
Maine did not play a large part of the Revolutionary War, mainly due to its distance from both Boston and the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, and most of the action seen in this area were naval battles. The British did burn the city of Portland (back then called Falmouth) in October in 1775. Aside from this there were very few land skirmishes. Our story involves a rather infamous figure in early American history: Benedict Arnold.
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| Benedict Arnold |
Arnold is most famous, of course, for betraying the Americans, becoming the ultimate turncoat, and joining the British. Benedict Arnold wrote his name forever in the history books in 1779, but before that he was actually a well-respected general, and an early hero of Revolution. In 1775 he was ordered by George Washington himself to lead a 1,100 man expedition up through Maine en route to Quebec to attack the British stronghold there. The mission turned out to be somewhat of a failure as Arnold arrived in Quebec with just half the men he started with and his force was unable to take the city from the British. That's not exactly what makes this a Malevolent Maine story.
See, Arnold and his troops were laid up for almost a month at the Great Carrying Place, in modern day Caratunk, Maine (just south of The Forks, on Route 201) where they planned to cross from the Kennebec River to the Dead River. There, disaster after disaster struck Arnold's men. A boat carrying supplies capsized and was lost. A "formidable number" of the men suddenly grew sick and died. A hurricane struck from October 19-21. Suddenly, it seemed like Benedict Arnold, who had become something of a hero up until this point, had suddenly run out of luck.
Then there were the stories of the Moose Man. Over forty reports of this strange apparition were reported by Arnold's men, including his second in command, Daniel Morgan, and the leader of the scouting part, Lieutenant Archibald Steele. All of the reports were similar enough that it is hard to discount them.
They all describe a figure somewhere between seven and eight feet tall, dressed in ragged torn clothing, possibly robes. The figure was described as thin to the point of emaciation, and his ribs could be seen through his torn clothing. He was described as having long fingers that seemed to be jointed in several extra places or, according to some reports, at odd angles. Where the man's head should have been was a moose skull.
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| The Moose Man of the Dead River |
The Moose Man, as they began calling the apparition, would appear to soldiers while they hunted the woods. At night it could be seen drifting between the trees on the outskirts of the camp. At first the Moose Man only observed the soldiers, disappearing when it was noticed, but as the men became more entrenched in the area, it began appearing more and more frequently.
"[It] brought a great sickness," Daniel Morgan wrote in a letter sent back home to the Continental Army headquarters. "Where the strange creature walked, disease followed. None of our medicines or treatments could cure the sickness, which began with crimson spots along the neck and face. These turned to blood and a thick, congestive cough. We lost a formidable number of men to the contagion the Moose Man spread among us."
Historians believe somewhere between 100 and 150 men died from this strange disease, which to this day has no rational explanation.
Arnold's scouts had forgotten to take into account how the terrain conditions would be impacted by rain and winter run off, and so the fifteen mile trek from Kennebec to Dead River became a slog. During the day, the men struggled portaging the boats and supplies, and night the Moose Man began raiding their camps.
One soldier, Lieutenant Church told of how the Moose Man would come into their camps at night, in the darkest hours, and begin tearing the place apart, ripping through tents and men alike. Several reports emerged of corpses left behind, their heads and spines removed, never to be recovered. Another fifty or so men were believed to be killed in the raids by the Moose Man.
Arnold ordered the creature, who he believed to be a native, to be hunted and brought to justice. Several parties went out into the woods, only one returned. Of the ten man team, two of the soldiers returned, both with grave injuries. They were incoherent, speaking only of the, "thing things that moves beyond the trees." One of the men succumbed to his injuries, the other never recovered his sanity and was sent back to the military base at Skowhegan, where he would eventually take his own life in 1780.
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| Was the freak hurricane natural or was it caused by the Moose Man? |
"I have never seen anything like it in all my days," Steele wrote in a report back to Arnold. "Bones and sticks arranged in a strange manner. Skulls looked at us with empty eyes. No way to indicate if these were our soldiers or not, but several of my men believed so."
That morning the men awoke to a steady rain which only intensified. By evening, it had turned into a full hurricane. Rain and wind lashed the men. There were reports of half inch hail. Trees were uprooted around the men. One man died when a tree fell directly onto him, snapped in half by a gust of wind. Today, experts estimate the hurricane that struck Arnold's men was a Category 3, with maximum sustained wind speeds of 111-130 mph.
Several men reported seeing the Moose Man at the height of the storm, illuminated for brief seconds by flashes of lightning, fists raised to the heavens.
By the time the storm finally blew away on October 21, many more of Arnold's men were dead. Over four hundred men decided that they had had enough. They deserted Arnold, returning back to Boston by way of Augusta and points south. The remaining men redoubled their efforts. They hardly slept, instead moving as rapidly as they could, determined to leave the cursed area behind them.
When the less than 600 of the men who had set out with Arnold from Boston finally arrived on the outskirts of Quebec on October 30, they were weak and starved. Many men were marching with injuries they could not rightly explain. Several others were sick with unknown diseases. They had not slept in several days and complained of haunting calls in the night and a tall, shadowy figure that stalked them.
The battle for Quebec was ultimately lost - the Continental forces were woefully unprepared for the fortifications of the British. Benedict Arnold was wounded and Daniel Morgan taken captive. Many of the soldiers who survived the battle, retired soon after, claiming the horrors not of the battle, but of the 350 mile trek through the Maine wilderness had been too much. Arnold, of course, would famously go on to be instrumental in the Battles of Saratoga before ultimately defecting to the British.
What was the strange Moose Man the troops encountered in the wilderness? Was it an angry native? A vengeful spirit? Did it cause the mysterious illness and somehow summon an impossible hurricane? Or was it just a fictional scapegoat for a growing contingent of men who had grown tired of this failed expedition?
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| The Moose Man has been seen for hundreds of years |
Reports of the Moose Man have persisted over the the two hundred and fifty years since Arnold's men encountered it. Many have claimed to see the Moose Man just on the edge of their vision, peering out from behind a tree or rock. Several people have claimed to have been chased by the apparition, and one hiker claims the Moose Man killed his companion, though the man was later found guilty of the murder. Still, none of been as much a victim of the Moose Man's rage as Benedict Arnold and the men of his unfortunate mission.
So, if you're in the area of Caratunk and the Dead River, stay safe out there, Maine.
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