As darkness fell in Penobscot Bay on August 13, 1779, the American soldiers and sailors in Penobscot Bay realized they were trapped by the newly arrived British fleet under Admiral Sir George Collier. With disaster staring them in the face, General Solomon Lovell, commander of the militia, and Commodore Dudley Saltonstall, the navy commander, displayed an energy that had been absent for much of the past three weeks.