“We have met the enemy, and they are ours.” In these memorable words Perry, on September 10, 1813, announced to General Harrison his victory over the British squadron off Put-in Bay. Never was good news more welcome. For the fortunes of the Americans on the northern frontier were ebbing low, and upon the outcome of that meeting between the hostile squadrons upon Lake Erie depended success in that region once and for all.
Oliver Hazard Perry’s entrance upon the duty for which he had applied, and to which he finally was ordered by the authorities in Washington, was most auspicious. He joined Commodore Chauncey on the lakes at just the right moment, and from that minute whatever he touched seemed to take the direction he wanted. The sailors called it his luck, and superstition never survived more obstinately than their faith in that luck. But this extraordinary advantage was not gained by Perry without labor, energy, courage, and wearing anxieties and disappointments. Of these he had his full share, but no more; and his opponents were in that respect no better off than he.
The situation on Lake Erie at the close of the campaign of 1812 was far from favorable to the American cause. The British squadron under Captain Finnis enjoyed undisputed control of the Lake and its shores. Perry, on the other hand, was confronted with the problem of an inferior and divided force. For when he reached Presqu’sle, he found that the vessels at his disposal there consisted of but two brigs, a schooner, and three gunboats, all still on the stocks, which the contractors could promise for service not earlier than June, while the available craft afloat, including the prize brig Caledonia, were at Black Rock in the Niagara River, unable to move on account of the British fort opposite Buffalo and Finnis’ squadron on the Lake. The task of the British commander was, therefore, to maintain these original advantages, by preventing the Black Rock division from gaining the Lake, and maintaining his own squadron in such a position near Presqu’sle (Erie), that the vessels under construction there would be prevented from crossing the bar obstructing that harbor.
Before the opening of the next campaign on the lake frontier, in 1813, the American authorities fortunately awoke to the fact that any further movement for the recapture of Detroit and the invasion of Canada would have to depend upon the naval control of Lake Erie, and that that in turn depended in a large measure upon their own superiority on Lake Ontario. A plan was therefore urged by Commodore Chauncey which, being duly acted upon by the combined naval and military forces, resulted in the capture of the important British positions at York and Fort George, and in the evacuation by the enemy of their controlling defences opposite Buffalo. The first two steps in Chauncey’s program had now been successfully taken. The British had been driven from the Niagara River, and the vessels at Black Rock at last were free to move. Preparations had already been made beforehand in anticipation of a victory, and the minute the enemy, in their retreat, abandoned Fort Erie, Perry was on hand to hasten the departure. With great physical labor, the vessels were tracked by oxen up against the current of the Niagara, here setting heavily toward the falls. On May 27 the British evacuated the opposite shore; on June 12 the vessels were above the rapids, but even then this could not have been accomplished had not the sailors had the assistance of several hundred soldiers furnished by Dearborn. These circumstances well show how hopeless the task would have been had the enemy remained in possession of Fort Erie.
Loaded with stores the little squadron, consisting of the Caledonia, Somers, Tigress, Ohio and Trippe, sailed from Buffalo on June 13, but head winds baffled them, and it was only by the merest chance that they ever arrived safely at Presqu’sle five days later; for the new British commander, Captain Robert H. Barclay, with commendable promptness, had taken the Lake with a superior force shortly after his arrival at Amherstburg, and was cruising between Black Rock and Presqu’sle to intercept the expected reenforcement; but Perry, coasting the beach, slipped by the enemy’s vessels unseen in a fog, and on June 18 reached a safe anchorage.
The first and most serious obstacle that confronted the American commander now had been successfully overcome; his concentrated force lay within the bar at Presqu’sle. There remained still the task of pressing the completion and equipment of the two brigs begun by Chauncev the previous winter. These were sister ships, the Lawrence and the Niagara, of five hundred tons burthen, and carrying eighteen 32-pounder carronades and two long 12-pounder guns. By the 23d both had been rigged, and’ armed, and would have been ready for service had there been men enough to man them. But of seamen there were no more to be had. Chauncey himself was still very short of men, and at one time even hinted the necessity of laying up his own fleet on Lake Ontario to man that on the upper lake. But Perry was not to be discouraged. Seeing the difficulty of increasing his complements, he went so far as to offer to enter upon active operations with half the number of men which he and Chauncey had agreed upon as essential to success. The commodore naturally expressed surprise at this change in his subordinate’s “sentiments,” but added that “if Captain Perry can beat the enemy with . . . . that number, no one will feel more happy than myself.” Of the Laurence’s nominal complement of one hundred and eighty, Perry actually had but one hundred and forty-two, of whom thirty were on the sick list; while in the squadron, instead of the required seven hundred and forty men, there were but four hundred and ninety on board. Of this number, nearly one hundred were received from the army only nine days before the battle.
Notwithstanding Perry’s willingness to make the best of his difficulties, this state of affairs came near causing his withdrawal from the squadron; “a loss which, had it occurred, might have reversed the issues, for in few general actions has the personality of the commander counted for so much, after the battle joined.” One of Chauncey’s letters offended his young subordinate, who was only twenty-eight years of age, and, though amiable, naturally quick of temper. Under the first impulse of resentment, the latter applied to be removed from the station because of the receipt of this letter, “in every line of which is an insult.” But, fortunately, it was impossible at that moment to grant this request, and Perry eventually reaped the harvest which he had so well sown.
While the preparations were nearing completion at Presqu’sle, General Procter, commanding the British land forces, with the cooperation of a sufficient squadron, was planning expeditions from Malden against every place on the ‘lake frontier except the very one to which military necessity and his orders bade him go. At the time of Perry’s arrival at Erie, March 27, that port was utterly defenceless, and without arms or ammunition of any kind, although the keels of the brigs had already been laid and the gunboats would soon be nearing completion. A visit to Pittsburgh secured four small guns, some muskets, and some five hundred militia, and with this slender protection Perry pushed on the arduous work of building and equipping his squadron in what was virtually a wilderness—a wilderness abounding in ship-timber, but one to which mechanics and shipwrights, and most of the materials and stores they needed, as well as the seamen to man the ships, had to be brought from the Atlantic seaboard under difficulties of transportation now hardly mentally pictured. Procter, however, bided his time, and, eager for action somewhere, directed his first efforts against Fort Meigs. For a week he besieged that post, May 1 to May 9. but without success. Then he bethought himself more seriously of the situation at Erie, and demanded reenforcements to attack the place. The advisability of this move was not denied, but the additional force requested was not forthcoming. The project against Erie was therefore abandoned, and the offensive transferred to Sandusky. Barclay was, however, directed to get under way with his fleet and cruise off Erie in order to retain the American vessels to port until the necessary assistance could be obtained. On the passage the British ships stopped at Long Point, on the Canadian shore directly opposite Erie, in the hope of finding additional seamen for their crews, and to embark a hundred soldiers to cooperate in the expedition. But the desired troops were refused, and Barclay found himself obliged to appear off Erie, on July 20, with his fleet most inadequately equipped, undermanned, and in want of everything. The loss of York in the spring, when all the ordnance, ammunition, and other stores intended for the service on Lake Erie were either destroyed or captured by the Americans, had been irreparable. Barclay’s only hope lay in completing a vessel called the Detroit, then on the stocks at Amherstburg, for which he had, with great difficulty, secured a collection of guns of various calibers from the ramparts of the fort. Thus equipped, she had to be manned; but no seamen were near at hand. As a last resort Barclay, at the last moment, was forced to make up a crew from a regiment of the garrison and from some available Canadians. Then, with the Detroit ready to sail, her commander had no alternative but to go out and fight. “So perfectly destitute of provisions was the port,” wrote Barclay, “that there was not a day’s flour in store, and the crews of the squadron under my command were on half allowance of many things; and when that was done, there was no more.”
So great, in fact, were Barclay’s own discouragements, that he allowed his great opportunity to escape him. For at the time of his appearance before Erie, on July 20, that port was so inadequately defended that the boats of his squadron might have made short work of the militia detailed for the protection of the vessels within the bar. But he merely made his presence known, cruised before the harbor, and then, on the 30th, disappeared, and was not seen again until the 4th of August. Once before fortune had smiled upon Oliver Hazard Perry, and now, as upon that occasion, that young officer was not found wanting. The harbor of Erie in which his fleet was assembled was an excellent one except for a bar at the entrance on which there was never more than seven feet of water. This natural barrier hitherto had prevented the enemy from getting in; since the completion of the brigs it as effectually prevented the American vessels from getting out. Perry’s preparations for the passage had been completed days before. The minute the British fleet disappeared from view below the horizon everything was hurried forward. Five of the smaller vessels were ordered across the bar to positions covering the channel, and three long 12-pounders were hastily mounted on the beach abreast the shoal. The brigs were lightened of their guns, and their hulls so lifted upon floats, that these, when sunk, made fast, and pumped out, raised the vessels sufficiently to admit their being floated over the shallow channel. The weather, fortunately, was propitious, and the Lawrence was successfully carried outside, although she once grounded on the shoalest spot and had to be refloated. At 8 o’clock on the morning of the 4th, she was fairly afloat, with her guns on board and just mounted, when the British reappeared. The Niagara immediately followed her sister ship into deep water, and then for the first time Barclay could not make an attack with any hope of success.
With Perry’s entire force on the Lake, Barclay’s only alternative was to seek the shelter of his batteries and await the completion of his most powerful ship, the Detroit. The Americans at once sailed in chase, but, failing in their attempt to overtake the enemy, returned to Erie for a fresh supply of provisions and stores for the army at Sandusky. While thus engaged, there came the welcome intelligence that Captain Jesse D. Elliott, an officer of reputation, with one hundred and two officers and men, was on his way to join the squadron. On the 10th they arrived, and two days later all was ready. The squadron got under way once more, and started out on what proved to be its final cruise, for the vessels did not return to Erie again until the close of the campaign when not a single enemy remained to oppose them upon the Lake. On August 25, Perry was off Malden, and again on the 1st of September, when he reconnoitered the British squadron near the harbor’s mouth. But Barclay refused to be tempted. He was having his own troubles securing men for his ships, and was determined upon postponing action until the necessary reenforcements reached him, or until the shortage of provisions, already staring him in the face, compelled him to force an action in order to reopen his communications with Long Point, from which all stores now had to be transported to Malden by water. Perry, therefore, established his headquarters at Put-in Bay, in the Bass Islands, some thirty miles southeast of Malden, whence he could easily watch his enemy and await the moment when Barclay should attempt to reach his base of supplies.
At daylight on September 10, the lookout at the masthead of the Lawrence sighted the British fleet in the northwest, coming down before a fair wind. Perry at once got under way, and began to beat out of the bay. The breeze, however, soon shifted to southeast, and there steadied, which not only enabled the Americans to quit the harbor, but gave them the weather position, an advantage which they maintained throughout the day. The British force consisted of six vessels—the Detroit, Barclay’s flagship, carrying nineteen guns; the Queen Charlotte, of seventeen guns commanded by Captain Finnis; the Lady Prevost of thirteen guns; the Hunter of ten; the Little Belt carrying three; and the Chippewa carrying one gun—in all, sixty-three guns, and probably about four hundred and forty men. The American squadron on the other hand numbered nine vessels—the Lawrence, Perry’s own brig, nearly as large as the Detroit, and carrying twenty guns; the Niagara, commanded by Captain Elliot, of the same tonnage, and with the same armament; the Caledonia, of three guns; the schooners Ariel, Scorpion, Somers, Porcupine, and Tigress, carrying ten guns; and the sloop Trippe, with one gun— in all, fifty-four guns, with an effective crew slightly smaller than that of the British. In number of guns the enemy were superior to the Americans. But in other respects—in ships, in tonnage, and in weight of metal thrown in a broadside, whether at long range or at close quarters—Perry had a most decided advantage. The Americans had thirty-nine 32-pound carronades; the British not a gun of that weight, and only fifteen 24-pound carronades. The lightest guns on the American vessels were eight long 12-pounders, while twenty-four of the British guns were only 9-pound shot, or less. The American broadside at long range was two hundred and eighty-eight pounds of metal; the British threw but one hundred and ninety-five pounds; while at close range the American superiority was as nine hundred pounds against four hundred and sixty.
Of this advantage Perry made full use. Leading the van in the Lawrence, with the blue flag inscribed “Don’t Give Up the Ship! “at her masthead, and supported by two gun-boats on her weather bow, he bore down before the light breeze and met the enemy’s fire shortly before noon. Ten minutes later the Americans began to reply, but their shots all fell short, while those of the British were much more destructive than had been anticipated. Perry, therefore, made more sail upon the Lawrence, and passed word by hail to the vessels astern to close up and for each vessel to bring her designated opponent into close action. Gradually the distance between the opposing lines shortened until the American flagship had worked her way to within canister range, about two hundred and fifty yards. The range was still greater than desirable for carronades, but Perry had stood his opponent’s raking fire as long as possible, and besides the Lawrence had already suffered so severely in her rigging, that she was fast becoming unmanageable. The battle was thus joined by the American flagship, supported by the long guns of the Scorpion and Ariel ahead, and the Caledonia astern. The Niagara, however, failed to come up, and her immediate opponent, the Queen Charlotte, was therefore left free to quit her position in line, range ahead of the Hunter, and bring her battery to bear upon the Lawrence, which for some time had been closely engaged with the
British flagship. In this position the action at the head of the line was fought most desperately until half past two. On each side the large ships were the targets for all guns, and suffered greatly. The Queen Charlotte was hulled repeatedly. Both flagships were well-nigh disabled; the Detroit, raked by the fire of the gun-boats and hulled by that of the Lawrence, was terribly shattered, while the Lawrence herself was reduced to little more than a wreck. Not a brace, not a bowline, not a gun on her engaged side remained on the American ship; eighty-three of her men, over half of her total complement, had fallen; her hull was riddled and splintered by shot which passed through from side to side, killing the wounded in the cockpit as they lay on the surgeon’s table. With only one gun left, she was a beaten ship, although her colors still floated in the breeze. But the courage and resolution of Perry never faltered. Finding that the Lawrence could no longer annoy the enemy, he himself, with the assistance of the purser and chaplain, gave the Detroit one more shot from the last effective piece, and, leaping into a small boat, was rowed to the Niagara, which for some reason never known, had carefully remained out of reach of harm with four of the gun-boats, desultorily firing her two long-range guns at the enemy’s vessels. To the Niagara, therefore, Perry transferred his flag, and he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had reached a fresh ship while the colors of the one he had left were still up.
All sail was at once made upon the new flagship, and, with the schooners lagging in the rear, Perry bore down to break the enemy’s line. The outcome of the action was now no longer in doubt. As the Niagara came within range, the Detroit tried to wear, to avoid being raked as well as to try to bring her unengaged battery into action. But in executing this manoeuver she fell foul of the Queen Charlotte which was ranging ahead on her lee quarter, and before the two could be got free Perry broke through. Firing his port guns into the Chippewa, Lady Prevost, and Little Belt, and his starboard guns into the Detroit, Queen Charlotte, and Hunter, he came on, delivering a murderous raking fire on both sides. One more attempt was made by the British to bring their batteries to bear, but their valor was in vain. The end was inevitable. With the ships lying completely unmanageable, every brace shot away, and spars down or badly wounded, their guns disabled, and the American vessels raking them ahead and astern, no alternative was left but surrender.
Thus was the campaign of Lake Erie fought and won. The scale and theater of its operations was small and confined indeed; but its military and political consequences were immense. It decided the military situation in the Northwest once and for all; it gave the Americans the supremacy on Lake Erie; it compelled the enemy to evacuate Detroit and the Michigan territory; it shook the Indians’ allegiance to the British cause and henceforth freed the frontier from the terror of savage massacres. “But the effect on the people—what it soon became the custom to call the moral consequences—outdid anything yet experienced. The almost unbroken series of naval victories on the sea had begun to pall. The charm of British invincibility was broken by Hull, Decatur, Bainbridge, and Burrows. Ship to ship, man to man, gun to gun, it had been proved over and over again that Great Britain was no match for America. But, till Perry met Barclay on Lake Erie, no fleet bearing the flag of the United States had ever encountered a fleet bearing the flag of England. In Perry, therefore, the people found a new sort of hero, a young Nelson, and, carried away by his youth, by the energy with which he built and manned his fleet, by the courage with which he bore the brunt of the fight, by the dramatic episode of the open boat, and by the skill with which, when all seemed lost by the mismanagement of Elliott, he brought up the Niagara and won the day, the people went wild with joy and in their ecstasy made him the hero of the war. All over the country bells were rung, cannon fired, towns and cities illuminated in his honor, and swords without number voted him. Albany gave him the freedom of the city, a sword, and a fine reception. Poughkeepsie was illuminated. Philadelphia took a day to rejoice and a night to illuminate. New York and Baltimore did the same. The people of Boston, in mass-meeting assembled, voted a sword. The Constitution honored him with a salute. Both ‘parties claimed him as their own. He became the toast of the hour at innumerable Democratic festivals held to celebrated the ‘triumph of the American arms over their enemies,’ and the chief theme of scores of naval songs, odes, verses, and impromptu lines. He deserved it all; for if ever a battle was won by the obstinacy and courage of one man, it was the Battle of Lake Erie.” *
* McMaster: History of the People of the United States, Vol. 4, p. 38.