1813

 

__________ 

“We have met the enemy, and they are ours. Two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop.” 

Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry

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Perry at the Battle of Lake Erie.

 

January 1: Congress decides to reduce the bounty for enlistments in the U.S. Army from $40  to $16, which means most volunteers continue to prefer militia service. The ability of the army to fight effectively is hampered throughout the war.

Paul Hamilton, the Secretary of the Navy, has to be replaced – being regularly reported to be drunk by noon – after he appears, clearly intoxicated, at a public ceremony aboard the USS Constitution.

 

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“Two Virginians and a foreigner.” 

January 5: Josiah Quincy, a Federalist, rises in Congress to complain. He declares that it is “a curious fact…for these twelve years past the whole affairs of this country have been managed, and its fortunes reversed, under the influence of a cabinet little less than despotic, composed to all efficient purposes, of two Virginians and a foreigner.” 

Meanwhile, General James Wilkerson is given command of the Northern region – despite the fact that his second-in-command, Wade Hampton, like most officers, considers him “a disgrace to the army.” Monroe and Secretary of War John Armstrong Jr. seemed, to other cabinet members, to be engaged in a battle for the next party nomination as president, and Armstrong let it be known he believed Madison had been incompetent during the war emergency. (24/315, 318)

 

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January 21: The Battle of the River Raisin turns into a debacle and then a massacre for U.S. forces. 

Eleven hundred British and Indians under General Proctor crossed the river to Frenchtown (now Monroe, Michigan). They had five cannon. Just before daybreak, on January 21, 1813, a rifle shot signaled the attack. General Winchester and the Americans were caught by surprise. Many of the Americans panicked and fled across the River Raisin but were cut off by Indians – more than a hundred being killed and scalped despite surrendering.

           

Two regiments of American troops fought well, sheltered near a house and behind a garden fence. Proctor had General Winchester, now a prisoner, stripped, as if the Indians were preparing to torture him. Then he promised the American commander that property and the lives of his men would be spared if he signed an order to his own men, calling on them to lay down their weapons. The Americans received this order under a white flag and obeyed it.

 

Then the massacre began, the Indians tomahawking and scalping the wounded. Proctor made no effort to stop it. He was so inhuman and treacherous that Tecumseh looked down upon him with scorn. (72/172-173)

 

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February 24: Off the coast of South America, the brig U.S.S. Hornet, eighteen guns, takes on H.M.S. Peacock, twenty guns. In fifteen minutes fire from the American warship wrecks the Peacock, 

the main-mast gone, rigging cut to pieces, and water pouring into her hold. Down came her flag, and up went a signal of distress. The crew of the Hornet manned  their boats, and began to take the men from the Peacock; but suddenly she went down, carrying thirteen of her own crew and three Americans. The American sailors had defeated the British, and now divided their clothing with them.

 

Humanity and kindness of heart on the deck of the Hornet; tomahawking and scalping on the banks of the river Raisin. The world noted the difference. (72/172-173)

 

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The Noble Red Man. 

Whereas Gen. Proctor was seen as a murderer by Americans, his ally, Tecumseh was often held up as an example of the “noble red man” and we find this story in A Popular History of Indiana: 

Of many anecdotes illustrating his nobility of character we shall give but one. After one of the victories won by the British and Indians, the country having been pillaged of almost everything by the invading armies, it transpired that an old man who was lame had managed to conceal a pair of oxen, with which his son was able to make a scanty living for the family. But one day while the man was at labor with the oxen Tecumseh, meeting him in the road, said: “My friend, I must have those oxen. My young men are very hungry; they have had nothing to eat. We must have the oxen.”

 

The son told the chief that if he took the oxen his father would starve to death.

 

“Well,” said Tecumseh, “we are the conquerors and everything we want is ours. I must have the oxen. My people must not starve, but I will not be so mean as to rob you of them. I will pay you $100 for them and that is far more than they are worth.”

 

Tecumseh got a white man to write an order on the British agent, Colonel Elliott. The oxen were killed, large fires built and the forest warriors were soon feasting on their flesh. But when the order was presented to Colonel Elliott he refused to honor it. The young man sorrowfully returned to Tecumseh who said: “He won’t pay it, will he? Stay all night and to-morrow we will go and see.” The next morning the two went to the British agent, to whom Tecumseh said: “Do you refuse to pay for the oxen I bought?”

 

“Yes,” said the colonel.

 

“I bought them,” said the chief, “for my young men were very hungry. I promised to pay for them and they shall be paid for. I have always heard the white nations went to war with each other and not with peaceful individuals; that they did not rob and plunder poor people. I will not.”

 

“Well,” said the colonel, “I will not pay for them.”

 

“You can do as you please,” said the chief; “but before Tecumseh and his warriors came to fight the battles of the great king they had enough to eat, for which they had only to thank the Master of Life and their good rifles. Their hunting grounds supplied them with food enough; to them they can return.” The colonel knew that the withdrawal of the Indian warriors from the British forces would be disastrous, so he yielded to Tecumseh, saying: “Well, if I must pay, I will.”

 

“Give me hard money,” said the chief, “not rag money.” Tecumseh handed the $100 in coin to the young man and then demanded “one dollar more” from the colonel, and, giving that also to the young man said: “Take that; it will pay for the time you have lost in getting your money.” (91/97-99)

 

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April 27: American forces cross over Lake Ontario to attack York (now Toronto). General Zebulon Pike – famous for his deeds as an explorer – leads a force of 1,600. Outnumbered British and Canadian forces surrender. But one defender laid a train of powder and five hundred kegs to blow up the fort. The man charged with lighting the fuse rushed his job. 

The resulting explosion sent “timbers, cannon, shot, and shells into the air. Forty British and fifty-eight Americans were killed. One of the Americans was General Pike, who was crushed by a falling timber, and after whom many counties and towns in the Western States have been named.” (72/174)

 

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April-May (The siege of Fort Meigs): Proctor soon marched on Fort Meigs, located on the Maumee River, with a force that included 1,500 Indians. For five days his artillery pummeled the defenders. General Harrison had his men dig deep; but he had only three big guns, and limited ammunition. For that reason he promised a gill of rum for every ball his men could find, and they dug them up whenever they plowed the ground, 2,000 in all. 

Harrison sent part of his army across the river with instructions to march on the British guns, spike them, and then immediately retreat. Defenders of Ft. Meigs saw their comrades pull down the British flag, and the guns went silent. But the American commander, Colonel Dudley, had not made it clear his troops were to fall back at once. “In a few moments more than one thousand Indians were upon them, and more than two-thirds of his force were captured, the Indians splitting open their skulls.” General Proctor did nothing to stop the killing. According to Coffin, Tecumseh (“Tecumtha,” he calls him), 

…was too honorable to see men slaughtered in cold blood who had surrendered.

 

“Why don’t you stop the killing?” he shouted to Proctor.

 

“I cannot control your warriors.”

 

“Go put on petticoats – you are no general,” said Tecumtha.

 

Eighty Americans were killed in the debacle, 270 wounded, 470 captured. Proctor had lost 100; but without his guns he had to give up the siege. (72/175-177)

 

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May 3: At Havre de Grace, Maryland, British landing parties burn 13 houses, 10 stables and two taverns.

 

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June: At Hampton, Virginia, enemy forces landed, several women were raped, and an old man killed in his bed.

 

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August 30: A force of 1,000 Creeks attacks Ft. Mims, in Alabama, just as drums are beating for dinner. 

According to Coffin, two slaves gave the commander of Fort Mims (he calls it Nims) warning that the woods nearby were full of Indians. Major Beasley sent out scouts who returned and said there were no warriors in sight. 

“‘I’ll teach you to lie,’ said Major Beasley, who tied up one of the negroes and had his back cut to pieces with a whip.” 

Noon came…The soldiers were at dinner; the gate of the fort was wide open – suddenly the people heard the war-whoop and beheld the Indians rushing in. The other negro, who had not been whipped but who was tied up to a post, was the first shot. Major Beasley, who had refused to believe his story, went down. The fight began, and lasted from twelve to five. When it was ended more than four hundred men, women and children were lying upon the ground, mangled by the Indians. Only twelve white men escaped. The Indians spared the negroes and made them their slaves. The Indians made their way to Pensacola, the scalps of women and girls dangling at their belts, and received their reward from the British Government – five dollars given for every scalp! (72/208)

 

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September 10: At 11:30 a.m. two fleets, one American, the other British, are in sight of each other on Lake Erie. Commodore Oliver Perry sends a signal from his flagship Lawrence to the rest of his American fleet, “Give the men their dinner.” 

Fifteen minutes later musicians on Detroit, the British flagship strike up, “Rule, Britannia.”

 

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THE NEXT NOTES come from an American Heritage story, “The Battle of Lake Erie” by Richard F. Snow. First, we will supply the background story, to how an American fleet was built and let loose on the lake. 

Daniel Dobbins was in Washington by late summer, 1812; but he had had great difficulty getting there. On July 12 General William Hull had invaded Canada with 2,200 men. By August 8, however, Hull had retreated to Detroit, where he surrendered a week later to a force half the size of his own. 

Snow says his performance was “variously ascribed to cowardice, senility, and treason.” Dobbins was one of the prisoners, and having already violated a parole (or so the British believed) he was scheduled to hang, but escaped in a thunderstorm. 

Snow describes his escape: 

A reward was offered for his scalp, and so, having anticipated this, he hid in a wrecked boat on the shore of the Detroit River. At length he made for the river’s mouth, where he found an abandoned Indian dugout. He paddled across Lake Erie to Sandusky and there got hold of a horse, which he rode to Cleveland. Then, again in a canoe, he pressed on to the harbor of Presque Isle…

 

From there he carried his message on “the long, dangerous forest road to Pittsburgh and then headed east.” 

President Madison asked his advice about building a fleet on Lake Erie and they agreed on Presque Isle. Dobbins was made a sailing master and ordered to proceed to Erie and get busy. He had $2,000 to spend. The town of Erie had 47 homes, one blacksmith shop, and a few men who knew how to use whipsaws. “There was no metal to speak of within a hundred miles, nor was there any rope or sailcloth to be had.” Dobbins set the price of timber at $1 per tree; he paid sawyers $1.25 per day, axe men 62 ½ cents. “Hauling was worth $4.00 a day to those who had horses or oxen.” 

Snow describes the virtues of the harbor he has chosen: 

His destination, Presque Isle, was a narrow finger of land six miles long, hooked out into Lake Erie and enclosing a superb natural harbor three miles long and more than a mile wide. A sandbar across the entrance to the bay presented some difficulties, but once inside, a ship was safe from any storm that might blow up.

 

A few days after his arrival Dobbins wrote a letter to: 

Commodore Chauncey or the commanding officer of the lake at Buffaloe

 

SIR : I have the honor to transmit to you … a coppy of my instructions from the Secretary of the Navy and assure you, Sir, that I stand ready to execute any orders you may be pleased to issue. …

 

A return letter arrived, not from Chauncey but Lt. Jesse Duncan Elliott, who, in modern terms, blew Dobbins off. Elliott completely discounted Dobbins’ ideas: 

It appears to me utterly impossible to build Gun Boats at Presqu’ile; there is not a sufficient depth of water on the bar to get them into the Lake. Should there be water, the place is at all times open to the attacks of the Enemy. … From a slight acquaintance I have with our side of Lake Erie … I am under the impression [it] has not a single Harbor calculated to fit out a Naval expedition, and the only one convenient I am at present at. … I have no further communication to make on the subject.

 

Dobbins kept building anyway, laying down the keels for two brigs and three gunboats. Supplies trickled in from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Dobbins spent $200 for masts for his vessels, $92.25 for sweeps and 14-foot oars. Winter blew in and many of his workers deserted. Money ran out. He wrote to his superiors, asking for help. He predicted that the vessels he was building would be “fast sailors.” But did they wish him to keep building? Luckily, Dobbins was a better shipwright than a speller. “Pleas give me orders…I have expended a considerable sum more than the two thousand dollars…I have brot the iron from Pittsburgh which comes high [in price] the Roads have been so bad if I am directed to go on with the work Pleas let me hear as soon as Posible.” 

Chauncey soon visited Presque Isle and agreed the harbor was more than sufficient. Noah Brown, who Snow describes as “a superb New York shipbuilder,” arrived in January 1813 and went to work. Meanwhile, Oliver Hazard Perry was asking Chauncey for a command on the Lakes. 

Perry came from a Quaker background; but his father had fought in the American Revolution. At age 14, his father took him on as a midshipman on his frigate. Together, they fought the French in 1799 in the Caribbean. Oliver also saw duty in the Mediterranean, fighting pirates in 1805. In 1809, he was given command of the schooner Revenge, with orders to cruise the Atlantic coast, looking for British warships stopping American merchant vessels. In January 1811, however, the Revenge  ran aground in thick fog while making for harbor in New London. The pilot was in charge at the time; and Perry was deemed not to be at fault; but his vessel had been sunk and he was back in charge of a lowly gunboat, operating out of Newport. 

Once war erupted, an “arms race” on Lake Ontario began. Both Chauncey and Sir James Lucas Yeo, worked hard to build stronger and stronger fleets. But neither man did much to actually bring on battle. By the end of the war, Snow notes, Chauncey “had nearly finished a 130-gun ship of the line, a vessel three times larger than anything America had on salt water.” 

In any case, Perry soon had his orders: Head for Presque Isle and get to work. He wasted no time, gathering 50 carpenters and sailors, and sending them on to Erie. He himself set out by sleigh, arriving on March 27, two weeks after Noah Brown. Dobbins, Brown, and Perry never really had enough men to do all the work; but Brown had a plan to speed the process. Once he came across a carpenter who was taking too long on a task. “We want no extras; plain work, plain work is what we want,” he explained. The ships would only be “required for one battle.” If the Americans won that would be all that they were needed for; and if they lost, and the ships were captured, then no need to make them fancy. Perry often left Erie to visit Pittsburgh or Philadelphia foundries casting round shot and cannon. On April 15, the Americans launched their first pair of gunboats, each mounting a 32-pounder cannon. Many workmen came down with fevers that spring. Those who could worked double shifts, sawing and hammering. Supplies came from Pittsburgh: shot, sails, anchors and, most importantly, guns. By mid-July, Perry had the fleet he wanted. Two brigs, Lawrence and Niagara, each carrying 20 guns, made up the two fists with which he would try to pummel any British opponent. 

The Department of the Navy sent men to Commander Chauncey, assuming he’d send some of the rest to Lake Erie. But Chauncey kept them all and Perry had to try to drum up enough sailors to man his vessels. Dobbins was sent around, offering $10 a month to anybody willing to serve four months or until one decisive battle was fought. This brought in only 60 men. The British managed to get a fleet of their own ready and put out to sail in mid-July. 

Perry now wrote desperately to Chauncey: 

The enemy’s fleet of six sail are now off the bar of this harbour. What a golden opportunity if we had men. … I am constantly looking to the eastward; every mail and every traveller from that quarter is looked to as the harbinger of the glad tidings of our men being on their way. … Give me men, sir, and I will acquire both for you and myself honour and glory on this lake, or perish in the attempt. … Think of my situation; the enemy in sight, the vessels under my command more than sufficient, and ready to make sail, and yet obliged to bite my fingers with vexation for want of men.

 

Three days later, he wrote Chauncey again, pleading, “For God’s sake and yours, and mine, send me men and officers, and I will have them [the British ships] in a day or two.” But no men came. The enemy ships could be seen close by every day and Perry could not put out to fight. At night he worried the British might try to raid his base and burn his new warships. The Pennsylvania militia troops ordered to guard Presque Isle refused to stand guard in the dark. Chauncey finally relented and sent Perry a few more men; With more than a tinge of racism perhaps, Perry complained, “The men that came…are a motley set, blacks, soldiers and boys…” 

Chauncey replied, 

“I regret that you are not pleased with the men sent you…for, to my knowledge, a part of them are not surpassed by any seamen we have in the fleet; and I have yet to learn that the color of the skin, or the cut and trimmings of the coat, can affect a man’s qualifications or usefulness.”

 

Had Perry known, he might have felt better; but the British commander on Lake Erie was having the same kind of problems manning his ships. Sir Robert Herriot Barclay had lost an arm at the Battle of Trafalgar. Now he found that the typical sailor sent by Yeo from Lake Ontario, was “a poor devil not worth his salt.” 

For many months now, a sandbar at the mouth of Presque Isle had kept the British from sailing in and blasting the new American fleet. And at the end of July, the enemy sailed away for some reason. Perry and his men tried to cross the bar; but Lawrence and Niagara stuck fast. For four days the sailors, black and white, young and old,  labored to get them across. All heavy guns and ammunition had to be taken off, rowed ashore, and the lightened vessels finally put out on Lake Erie. Just in time, Lt. Elliott arrived with two more schooners and 99 officers and men. 

Perry had had his fill of frustrations and delays. In yet another angry letter to the Secretary of the Navy, he threatened to resign his command. “I cannot serve longer,” he wrote of Chauncey, “under an officer who has been so totally regardless of my feelings.” Luckily, the authorities in Washington, D.C. decided to ignore his request to be replaced. 

For several weeks, Perry cruised the lake, giving his men as much practice manning the new ships as he could. A new base at Put-in-Bay was ready. General William Henry Harrison, in command on land, sent Perry a hundred Kentucky soldiers with their famous long rifles. They weren’t much for sailing; but they now gave Perry 490 men to fight his nine ships. 

Barclay, too, was having serious problems. He had a fine new brig, the Detroit, ready to fight; but getting guns was a problem. He borrowed several field guns from the British army; but in all six different types of cannon made up Detroit’s 19 guns. This would mean all kinds of problems with ammunition once an actual battle began. On September 9, he weighed anchor and went looking for a fight. On board he had barely enough flour to feed his men. 

Perry now prepared for battle. Elliott had command of Niagara, a detail that would prove to be a serious problem. The winds swirled most of the morning on Lake Erie. Then they steadied and blew from the southeast, giving the Americans the “weather gauge.” 

Snow gives us the makeup of the two opposing fleets: 

On that night Perry called his officers aboard his ship and discussed the battle he knew was imminent. Barclay’s strongest ships were the Detroit and the Queen Charlotte, which mounted seventeen guns. These would be engaged by the Lawrence, Perry’s flagship, and her sister ship, the Niagara, which Perry had placed under the command of Jesse Elliott. Perry drew up a line of battle and then, paraphrasing Nelson’s great dictum, said: “If you lay your enemy alongside, you cannot be out of place.” The officers returned to their ships, and a full autumn moon came out and rolled across the sky. Living things chittered and peeped on the shore of the harbor, and the ships lay motionless on the water in the bright, still night.

 

The next morning at sunup the lookouts sighted the British fleet, and Perry stood out for open water. It was a fine, cloudless day, with fluky breezes that eventually steadied and swung around to the southeast, giving the American ships the weather gauge – the important ability to force or decline battle as they chose. The schooner Chippewa led the enemy line, followed by Barclay’s flagship, the Detroit, the brig Queen Charlotte, the brig Hunter of ten guns, the schooner Lady Prevost, and the sloop Little Belt. Perry accordingly arranged his line so that the Lawrence was in the van, with the schooners Ariel and Scorpion standing by her weather bow, the Caledonia next, to fight the Hunter, and then the Niagara, with which Elliott was to engage the Queen Charlotte. The gunboat-schooners Somers, Porcupine, and Tigress and the sloop Trippe would take on the Lady Prevost and the Little Belt. Dobbins should have been there in the schooner Ohio, but he had been sent to Erie to pick up supplies.

 

Aboard both fleets, cutlasses were put out on deck, in case the enemy ever came close enough for men to jump from one ship to the other. Shot were place near the guns. All hatches were closed, save for one left open, so that ammunition could be brought up from below. Perry placed his most important documents in a pouch weighed down with lead. If Lawrence were forced to surrender, he told the ship’s doctor, he should toss the pouch into the lake. Up went the flag over Lawrence, too, “Don’t Give Up the Ship.” 

Perry soon turned to a nearby officer and said, “This is the most important day of my life.” In the distance, British musicians aboard the enemy fleet could be faintly heard playing the tune, “Rule Britannia.” Barclay and Perry made for each other. When still a mile away, the Detroit fired a shot to get the proper range. A second shot struck the Lawrence. All but two of Perry’s guns were powerful 32-pound carronades, short-barreled and deadly, but only at close range. So he held his fire and headed for the Detroit. For the next few minutes, Perry was at the mercy of his enemy. The British, Snow says, “picked his ship apart in a ghastly sort of target practice.      

“After half an hour the Lawrence’s rigging was almost useless, but Perry was close enough for his guns to take effect.” 

For some reason, Elliott hung back from the fight. Queen Charlotte then joined and Lawrence was hit by fire from both ships. Snow says, “The destruction on the decks of the Lawrence was appalling. The air was filled with iron and great jagged splinters of wood…” The surgeon, Usher Parsons, had more wounded than he could possibly handle. John Brooks, in charge of the marines, “the handsomest man in the fleet,” Snow writes, had his hip smashed by a cannonball and lay in agony on the deck, begging for a pistol to kill himself. Parsons was helping a wounded midshipman to his feet after dressing his arm, when a cannonball tore through the hull and killed the man. Five shots in all tore through the cabin. On the decks, men slipped in blood. A black spaniel howled. 

Oddly enough, Snow writes, “It is said that Perry suffered a psychopathic fear of cows and would splash across a muddy road to avoid going near one of the innocuous beasts.”

 

Now, as the battle raged, six times Perry appeared at the skylight above Parsons and asked him to spare one of his assistants to man the guns. Finally, none remained. Perry asked next if any of the wounded could return to the fight and help. Several did; but by 2:30 p.m. not a gun remained in service on Lawrence’s decks. Four out of every five men aboard were dead or wounded. Parsons later said many of the wounded cursed Elliott for refusing to enter the fight. 

Perry now lowered the “Don’t Give Up the Ship” flag, but not the American, left Lt. Yarnell in charge with nine men still fit to serve. He and a handful of other sailors took a small boat, miraculously undamaged, and rowed for fifteen minutes, under fire, to reach Niagara. Moments later, with “unspeakable pain,” as Perry remembered it, he saw the flag on Lawrence go down. But the British never had a chance to take her; and the flag soon went up again. 

The enemy, too, had suffered terrible losses. There was not a spot bigger than a hand on the side of Detroit, a sailor later testified, that had not been splintered or cracked by American fire. Barclay’s one good arm had been shattered and he had other wounds too. Worse, Detroit and Queen Charlotte had become tangled and could not be freed. Now the Niagara came on  hard, sailing between Hunter and Detroit, blasting broadsides in two directions. The rest of the American fleet was now coming up to batter the British vessels; and at 3 p.m. Barclay finally surrendered. 

British losses numbered 41 killed, 94 wounded. Perry lost 27 dead, 96 wounded, only four men having been killed aboard the late-arriving Niagara. 

General Proctor received news of the defeat and began his retreat from Ohio; but Harrison caught him and delt him a decisive defeat at the Battle of the Thames.

 

Perry actually mentioned Elliott favorably in his official report; and the two captains split the $225,000 prize money for the capture of Barclay’s fleet. Later, Perry retracted his compliment. In 1818, Elliott challenged Perry to a duel. Perry filed charges against him; but President Monroe let the matter die. Perry died in 1819, a result of a fever he had contracted while on duty along the S. American coast. 

Snow concludes: 

As for Daniel Dobbins, he spent the rest of his life on the Lakes, navigating them for forty years and never, he liked to boast, losing so much as a spar. When the President awarded a sword to each midshipman and sailing master who served well on Lake Erie, Dobbins wrote saying that he would like one too. But he was told that since he had not been in the battle, he was not eligible, and he never got his sword.

 

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COFFIN also provides a brief description of the fight: 

The Lawrence is the fastest vessel, and first into the fight with the enemy. The British concentrate their heavy fire on the flagship. Most of the sailors aboard the Lawrence are cut down. Lt. Yarnell sends a sailor to ask Perry for a few more men to man the guns. “A few minutes later he stands before his commander with the blood streaming down his face from a wound caused by a splinter which has passed through his nose.” Yarnell is told there are no men to spare – he returns to the guns – and a second splinter tears his scalp, “but he wipes away the blood and sights his gun once more.” 

Coffin continues: “A shot crashes through the pantry and smashes all the plates, cups, and saucers. A little dog, which has been hiding there, leaps upon the deck and sets up a furious barking at the British.” 

By 2:30 p.m., “The Lawrence is a helpless wreck. In a few minutes there will not be a man left.” 

There are supreme moments in men’s lives; such a moment has come to Oliver Hazard Perry. Though his decks are running with blood, though he has but one gun left, though his ship is a wreck, he will win the victory! It is only a great soul that can come to such a determination. Astern, half a mile away, is the Niagara, with as many guns as the Lawrence had at the beginning. Scarcely a shot has struck her. Captain Elliott, for some reason, has not come into the battle. The other vessels of the fleet are but little injured. Commodore Perry decides to go on board the Niagara and begin the battle anew. He has worn a plain blue jacket, but now pulls it off and puts on his uniform.

 

“Lower the boat!” The order is executed, and, with his flag under his arm, accompanied by his little brother, Commodore Perry steps into it. He stands erect. The oars dip, and the boat shoots out from the Lawrence. Captain Barclay beholds it, and comprehends the meaning. His own ship, the Detroit, is almost a wreck from the pounding which it has had from the great guns of the Lawrence, for, though silent now, they have been worked with terrible effect. He knows that if Perry gains the deck of the Niagara the battle will rage more furiously than ever.

 

Perry soon splits the enemy fleet, pouring in broadsides right and left. By 3 o’clock every U.S. vessel is involved in the fight, except the wrecked Lawrence. At eight minutes after the hour Commodore Barclay is forced to lower his flag and all other enemy vessels follow suit. 

On the back of an old letter, Perry writes: “We have met the enemy, and they are ours. Two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop.” (72/188-193)