Battle of Lake Erie--Master-Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry--Building a
Fleet--Perry on the Lake--A Duel of Long Guns--Fearful Slaughter on the
Lawrence--"Can Any of the Wounded Pull a Rope?"--At Close Quarters--
Victory in Fifteen Minutes--"We Have Met the Enemy and They Are Ours"
--The Father of Chicago Sees the End of the Battle--The British
Evacuate Detroit--General Harrison's Victory at the Thames--Tecumseh
Slain--The Struggle in the Southwest--Andrew Jackson in Command--Battle
of Horseshoe Bend--The Essex in the Pacific--Defeat and Victory on the
Ocean--Captain Porter's Brave Defence--Burning of Newark--Massacre at
Fort Niagara--Chippewa and Lundy's Lane--Devastation by the British
Fleet--British Vandalism at Washington--Attempt on Baltimore--"The Star
Spangled Banner."
And now came the struggle for the control of Lake Erie--a struggle on
which depended whether England should succeed in preventing the western
growth of the United States, or be driven forever from the soil which
Americans claimed as their own. Master-Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry was
but twenty-six years of age when the Navy Department called him from his
pleasant home at Newport and sent him to command a navy summoned from the
primeval forests of the Northwest. Young as he was Perry had seen service
in the wars with France and Tripoli, and he had requested the Navy
Department at the commencement of the conflict with England to send him
where he could meet the enemies of his country. Perry arrived at Erie,
then known as Presque Isle, in March, 1813. Sailing Master Daniel Dobbins
and Noah Brown, a shipwright from New York, were busily at work on the
new fleet. Two brigs, the Niagara and the Lawrence, were built with white
and black oak and chestnut frames, the outside planking being of oak and
the decks of pine. Two gunboats were newly planked up, and work on a
schooner was just begun. The vessels had to be vigilantly guarded against
attack by the British, who were fully aware of the work being done. The
capture of Fort George left the Niagara River open, and several American
vessels which had been unable before to pass the Canadian batteries were
now, with great exertion, drawn into the lake. These were the brig
Caledonia, the schooners Somers, Tigress and Ohio, and the sloop Trippe.
An English squadron set out to intercept the new arrivals, but Perry
succeeded in gaining the harbor of Erie before the enemy made their
appearance.
The American ships were ready for sea on July 10, but officers and
sailors were lacking, and it was not until about the close of the month
that Perry had three hundred men to man his ten vessels. While the
British squadron, under Captain Robert Heriot Barclay maintained a
vigorous blockade, Perry found that his new brigs could not cross the bar
without landing their guns and being blocked up on scows. Commander
Barclay, thinking that Perry could not move, made a visit of ceremony
with his squadron to Port Dover, on the Canadian side. During Barclay's
absence Perry got the Lawrence and Niagara over the bar, and the British
commander was astonished, when he returned on the morning of August 5, to
see the American fleet riding at anchor, and ready for battle. Barclay
wished to delay the naval combat until after the completion at Malden of
a ten-gun ship called the Detroit, which was to be added to his force,
and he therefore put into that harbor.[1] Perry improved the delay to
exercise his crews, largely made up of soldiers, in seamanship.
[1] Malden, on the Detroit River, eighteen miles below the city of
Detroit, is now known as Amherstburg.
It was not until September 10 that the British squadron came out to give
battle. Master-Commandant Perry had nine vessels mounting fifty-four
guns, with 1536 pounds of metal. The British squadron consisted of six
vessels, mounting sixty-three guns, with a total weight of 852 pounds.
The American vessels were manned by 490 men and the British by 502 men
and boys. In discipline, training and physical condition, however, the
difference of crews was much more in favor of the British than the
numbers indicate. The brig Lawrence was Perry's flagship; Barclay's
pennant flew on the Detroit. As the American vessels stood out to sea
Perry hoisted a large blue flag with the words of the dying Lawrence in
white muslin--"Don't give up the ship!" He prepared for defeat as well as
for victory, by gathering all his important papers in a package weighted
and ready to be thrown overboard in the event of disaster. It may be said
that Perry fought the earlier part of the battle almost alone, a
slow-sailing brig, the Caledonia, being in line ahead of the Niagara, and
Perry, having given orders that the vessels should preserve their
stations.
In the duel of long guns the British had a decided advantage and their
fire being concentrated on the Lawrence that vessel soon became a wreck.
Of one hundred and three men fit for duty on board the American flagship,
eighty-three were killed or wounded. These figures sufficiently indicate
the carnage; but Perry fought on. "Can any of the wounded pull a rope?"
cried Perry, and mangled men crawled out to help in training the guns.
For nearly three hours the Lawrence with the schooners Ariel and
Scorpion, fought the British fleet. Then Master-Commandant Elliott, of
the Niagara, fearing Perry had been killed, undertook, notwithstanding
Perry's previous orders, to go out of line to the help of the Lawrence.
Perry then changed his flag to the Niagara, leaving orders with First
Lieutenant John J. Yarnall, of the Lawrence, to hold out to the last.
Perry at once sent Master-Commandant Elliott in a boat to bring up the
schooners, and meantime Lieutenant Yarnall, deciding that further
resistance would mean the destruction of all on board, lowered the flag
on the Lawrence. The English thought they were already victors, and gave
three cheers, but the Lawrence drifted out of range before they could
take possession of her, and the Stars and Stripes were raised again over
her blood-stained decks.
The battle had in truth only begun, but was soon to end. The remainder of
the American squadron closed in on the English vessels, raking them fore
and aft. The English officers and men were swept from their decks by the
hurricane of iron. It was the United States and the Macedonian on a
smaller scale. The American cannonade at close quarters was so fast and
furious that the British ships were soon in a condition that left no
choice save between sinking or surrender. In fifteen minutes after the
Americans closed in a British officer waved a white hand-kerchief. The
enemy had struck. Two of the English vessels, the Chippewa and the Little
Belt, sought to escape to Maiden, but were pursued and captured by the
sloop Trippe and the Scorpion.[2] Perry proceeded to the Lawrence, and on
the decks of his flagship, still slippery with blood, he received the
surrender of the English officers. Perry wrote with a pencil on the back
of an old letter his famous dispatch: "We have met the enemy, and they
are ours--two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop." The
Americans lost in the battle twenty-seven killed and ninety-six wounded,
of whom twenty-two were killed and sixty-one wounded on board the
Lawrence. Twelve of the American quarter-deck officers were killed. The
British lost forty-one killed and ninety-four wounded, making a total of
one hundred and thirty-five. Commander Barclay, one of Nelson's veterans,
had lost an arm in a previous naval engagement. He gave his men an
admirable example of courage, being twice wounded, once in the thigh and
once in the shoulder, thus being deprived of the use of his remaining
arm. Captain Finnis, of the Queen Charlotte, was mortally wounded, and
died on the same evening.
[2] "At half past two, the wind springing up, Captain Elliott was
enabled to bring his vessel, the Niagara, into close action. I
immediately went on board of her, when he anticipated my wish by
volunteering to bring the schooners, which had been kept astern by
the lightness of the wind, into close action. At forty-five minutes
past two the signal was made for close action. The Niagara being
very little injured I determined to pass through the enemy's line,
bore up and passed ahead of their two ships and a brig, large
schooner and sloop from the larboard side, at half pistol shot
distance. The smaller vessels at this time having gotten within
grape and canister distance, under the direction of Captain Elliott,
and keeping up a well-directed fire, the two ships, a brig and a
schooner, surrendered, a schooner and a sloop making a vain attempt
to escape."--_Perry's account of the battle._
Thousands on the American and British shores witnessed or listened to the
conflict, conscious that upon the result depended the future of the
Northwest. None listened with more patriotic eagerness than John Kinzie,
already mentioned as the first resident of Chicago, then a prisoner at
Maiden, having been removed from Detroit on suspicion that he was in
correspondence with General Harrison. Kinzie was taking a promenade under
guard, when he heard the guns on Lake Erie. The time allotted to the
prisoner for his daily walk expired, but neither he nor his guard
observed the fact, so anxiously were they catching every sound from what
they now felt sure was an engagement between ships of war. At length Mr.
Kinzie was reminded that the hour for his return to confinement had
arrived. He pleaded for another half hour.
"Let me stay," said he, "till we can learn how the battle has gone."
Very soon a sloop appeared under press of sail, rounding the point, and
presently two vessels in chase of her.
"She is running--she bears the British colors," cried Kinzie--"yes, yes,
they are lowering--they are striking her flag! Now"--turning to the
soldiers, "I will go back to prison contented. I know how the battle has
gone."
The sloop was the Little Belt, the last of the British fleet to
surrender, after a vain attempt to escape. The Father of Chicago had seen
the end of the battle which made possible the Chicago of to-day.[3]
[3] John Kinzie was born at Quebec in 1763. After the war he went
back to Chicago, and died January 6, 1828, aged 65 years.
Perry's victory compelled the enemy to evacuate Detroit, and all their
posts in American territory except Michilimacinac, which place remained
in the possession of the British until the close of the war. Soon after
the battle of Lake Erie, General Harrison crossed to the Canadian shore,
entered Maiden, and then passed on in pursuit of Proctor and Tecumseh,
who were in full retreat up the valley of the Thames. In the battle of
the Thames, which followed, the British were completely routed, and
Tecumseh was slain. The Northwest was now secure. The British had been
driven back and their Indian ally, Tecumseh, with his great scheme of an
independent Indian power, had passed away.
* * *
In the Southwest, however, the struggle between whites and Indians
continued to rage, the latter being led by a half-breed Creek named
Weathersford. The massacre of more than four hundred men, women and
children by the Creeks at Fort Mimms, in what is now Alabama, aroused the
frontiers to fury, and Andrew Jackson, already known as "Old Hickory,"
the idol of his troops and the terror of the feeble War Department, took
the field at the head of twenty-five hundred men. He showed himself a
master of forest warfare, and in the bloody battle of Horseshoe Bend he
broke the strength of the Creeks forever. Weathersford sought the tent of
his conqueror, and asked for mercy for his people--not for himself.
Jackson, who could respect in others the courage with which he was so
eminently endowed, granted generous terms to the vanquished, and
Weathersford lived thereafter in harmony with the whites. The autumn of
1813 witnessed the subjection of the hostile Indian tribes from the Lakes
to the Gulf.
* * *
The American navy continued to distinguish itself on the ocean as on the
lakes, in heroic defeat as well as in signal victory. While Captain David
Porter, in the Essex, swept British commerce and privateers from the
Pacific, starting out with a frigate and starting home with a fleet, all
taken by himself during a cruise unsurpassed for skill, daring and
success, Master-Commandant William Henry Allen, of the American brig
Argus, lost his life and his vessel in battle with the British brig
Pelican. The defeat of the Argus is believed to have been caused by the
use of defective powder, which had been taken from on board a prize, and
which did not give the cannon shot force enough to do serious damage to
the enemy. Allen's death was due to his remaining on deck to direct his
men after he had been seriously wounded. He was one of the best officers
in the navy. The defeat and capture of the British brig-of-war Boxer,
fourteen guns, after a sharp engagement, by the American schooner
Enterprise, sixteen guns, in some degree compensated for the loss of the
Argus. Captain Samuel Blythe, of the Boxer, nailed his colors to the mast
and was killed at the first broadside. Lieutenant William Burrows, of the
Enterprise, was mortally wounded, but lived long enough to have the
British commander's sword placed in his hands. The splendid cruise of the
Essex ended most unfortunately at Valparaiso, where the frigate was
attacked while in port by the British thirty-six-gun frigate Phoebe and
eighteen-gun ship-sloop Cherub. The Essex was in a disabled condition.
The British stood off beyond reach of the American's short guns, and kept
up a terrific cannonade with their long guns, of which the two British
vessels had thirty-eight and the Essex only six. Captain Porter held out
for about two hours under these unequal conditions, while his men were
slaughtered and his vessel cut to pieces--he himself being foremost in
exposure and danger. At length he surrendered. "Her colors," said the
British commander, "were not struck until the loss in killed and wounded
was so awfully great, and her shattered condition so seriously bad, as to
render further resistance unavailing."
* * *
Fresh bitterness was added to the struggle about the close of 1813 by the
imprudent and inhuman action of General McClure, the American commander
at Fort George, in setting fire to the Canadian village of Newark in
almost the depth of winter and turning out the inhabitants homeless
wanderers in the snow. This outrage provoked but did not justify the
massacre by the British of the helpless sick and unresisting at Fort
Niagara, and the wasting of villages and settlements on the American side
of the frontier. The invasion of Canada in 1814 by the Americans under
General Jacob Brown proved little more than a border raid, although the
Americans won a well-fought battle at Chippewa and a costly victory at
Lundy's Lane, on both of which occasions General Winfield Scott gained
merited distinction. The tide of war rolled back and forth a good deal
like the old border strife between Scotland and England. Each side felt
that it had wrongs to avenge, and wounds were inflicted by petty raids
and skirmishes deeper and more rankling than those of a regular campaign.
While these were the conditions on the northern frontier, the shores of
the Republic were harassed by the fleet of Admiral Cockburn from Delaware
Bay to Florida. Villages were plundered, plantations devastated and
slaves carried off under the false promise of freedom, to be sold in the
West Indies. The people living on and near the coast were kept in
ceaseless alarm by these marauders, who descended in unexpected places,
and inflicted all the damage within their power.
The overthrow of Napoleon in 1814, left the United States alone in
hostility to Napoleon's triumphant foe, and the British government
prepared to carry on the war vigorously. A powerful fleet appeared in
Chesapeake Bay, and landed an army of about five thousand men under the
command of General Robert Ross. The authorities at Washington were
entirely unprepared for the attack, and the British, after defeating an
American force, more like a mob than an army, at the battle of
Bladensburg, marched into Washington. There, in a manner worthy of
vandals, the public buildings, including the Capitol and the President's
house, were given to the flames. While this act of barbarism was
disapproved by the English people, it is not to be forgotten that it was
hailed with delight and laudation by the British Government, and that a
monument to General Ross was erected in Westminster Abbey. The British
followed up the firing of Washington by an effort to capture Baltimore.
The brave defenders of Fort McHenry held out successfully against
Cockburn's fleet, and General Ross lost his life while attempting to
co-operate with the fleet. Francis S. Key, a resident of Georgetown,
D. C., was detained on board a British ship while Fort McHenry was being
bombarded, and in the depth of his anxiety for his country's flag he
wrote that famous song, "The Star Spangled Banner." Finding that their
vandalism only served to inflame American patriotism instead of
"chastising the Americans into submission," as Cockburn had been ordered
to do, the invaders withdrew to their vessels.