If Proctor was afraid of Harrison, with more military reason Harrison
was afraid of Proctor; and while the British colonel, deserting his
wounded prisoners, hurried from the field of battle, and felt himself
in danger until the next day he was again entrenched at Malden, at
the same moment Harrison, burning the post at the Maumee Rapids and
destroying such stores as were collected there, hastened back to the
Portage or Carrying River some fifteen miles in the rear. Within
thirty-six hours after the battle, the two enemies were sixty miles
apart. At the Portage River Harrison remained a week, until he had
collected a force of two thousand men. With these he returned to the
rapids February 1, and began to construct a regularly fortified camp on
the south bank of the river. Fort Meigs, as it was called, did credit
to the skill of Major Wood, the engineer officer who constructed it;
but such a fortress seemed rather intended for defence than for the
conquest of Canada.
In fact, Harrison had succeeded only in making the most considerable
failure that had thus far marked the progress of the war; but while
the public was still assuming treason and cowardice in William Hull,
who had been sent with fifteen hundred men to hold Detroit and conquer
Canada, and had been left unsupported to face destruction,--the same
public admitted the excuses of Harrison, who with ten thousand men,
unlimited means, and active support at Niagara, after four months of
effort, failed even to pass the Maumee River except with a detachment
so badly managed that only thirty-three men in a thousand escaped. This
was the crowning misfortune which wrung from Gallatin the complaint
that a “real incapacity” for war existed in the government itself,
and must inevitably exhaust its resources without good result; but
although it drove Gallatin to Europe, it left Harrison on the Maumee.
Harrison would not take on himself the disgrace of admitting his
inability to recapture Detroit, and the President would not, without
his express admission, order him to desist. As Armstrong afterward
explained:[88] “The Cabinet, not inexpert at deciphering military
diplomacy, and peculiarly shy of incurring any responsibility it could
avoid, determined, with perhaps less of patriotism than of prudence,
to leave the question of continuing the winter campaign exclusively
with the General.” The General, not inclined to sink into obscurity
or to admit failure, set himself to a third campaign as hopeless as
either of its predecessors. Ordering all the troops in his rear to
join him, making a body of four thousand men, he fixed February 11 as
the day for his advance on Malden, not expecting to reduce that place,
but merely to raid it.[89] When the day arrived, the roads had again
become impassable, the ice was no longer safe; and Harrison, “with much
reluctance and mortification,”[90] was reduced to write from the Maumee
Rapids to the Secretary of War that the campaign must cease.
Thus the Western movement, likened by Henry Clay to a tenth-century
crusade, ended in failure. The Government would have been in a better
position had it never sent a man to the Maumee, but merely built a few
sloops at Cleveland. The entire result of six months’ immense effort
was confined to raids into the Indian country; and even these were
costly beyond proportion to their results. When the militia of Kentucky
and Ohio, which had been mustered in August for six months’ service,
returned to their homes in February, 1813, not only had they failed to
reoccupy a foot of the ground abandoned by Hull, but they left Harrison
almost alone at Fort Meigs, trembling lest the enemy should descend
on his rear and destroy his supplies, or force him back to protect
them.[91] He had accumulated artillery, ammunition, and stores at the
Maumee Rapids, in a fortress which itself required a garrison of two
thousand men and from which he could neither fall back, as he thought
the wiser course,[92] nor remain with safety exposed to an active
enemy. He called for more militia from Kentucky and Ohio, but the
people no longer felt enthusiasm for war.
“I am sorry to mention,” reported Harrison, March 17,[93] “the
dismay and disinclination to the service which appear to prevail in
the Western country; numbers must give that confidence which ought
to be produced by conscious valor and intrepidity, which never
existed in any army in a superior degree than amongst the greater
part of the militia who were with me through the winter. The new
drafts from this State [Ohio] are entirely of another character,
and are not to be depended on.”
In short, Harrison, who had in 1812 commanded ten thousand militia,
seemed to think double the number necessary for 1813, besides regular
troops and a fleet.
President Madison and two successive Secretaries of War had allowed
themselves, for fear of displeasing Kentucky, to give Harrison _carte
blanche_,[94] which Harrison had used without other limit than that
of the entire resources of the West. The time at last came when
such management must be stopped, and Secretary Armstrong, naturally
impatient under the load of Eustis’s and Monroe’s failures, quickly
decided to stop it. Harrison’s letter of February 11, announcing his
failure, reached the Department March 1. March 5 the secretary wrote
to Harrison ordering him to maintain a threatening attitude, but
altering the mode of warfare. Henceforward the army was to be made
subordinate,--the navy was to take the lead; and until the middle of
May, when the fleet on Lake Erie should be constructed, Harrison was to
maintain a strict defensive, and to protect the line of the Maumee with
six regular regiments, only three of which had been yet partly raised.
Meanwhile, Harrison had but a few hundred regulars and some
Pennsylvania and Virginia militia,--perhaps five hundred men in
all,--to hold Fort Meigs, and mere squads of militia to guard eight
other posts which had cost the government some millions of dollars.
These five hundred troops, whose service was mostly near its end,
he left at Fort Meigs, and in the middle of March he set out for
Chillicothe and Cincinnati. Greatly annoyed at the summary manner in
which Armstrong had put an end to his campaigning, he protested only
against the inadequacy of his force for the defence required of it,
and insisted on a temporary reinforcement of militia to garrison the
fortress that had cost him so much effort to construct at the Maumee
Rapids.
Then the value of General Proctor to his enemy became immense. Between
January 22, when he attacked Winchester, and the end of April, when
he moved on Fort Meigs, Proctor molested in no way the weak and
isolated American garrisons. With hundreds of scouts and backwoodsmen
at his command, he had not the energy or the knowledge to profit by
his opponents’ exposed and defenceless condition. He allowed Major
Wood to make Fort Meigs capable of standing a siege; he let Harrison,
unmolested, pass a month away from his command; he looked on while the
Virginia militia marched home, leaving only a handful of sickly men,
under a major of artillery, to defend the unfinished fort; he made no
attempt to waylay Harrison, who returned with reinforcements by way of
the Auglaize River; and not until Harrison had enjoyed all the time
necessary to prepare for attack, did Proctor disturb him.
Harrison, expecting an assault, hurried back from Cincinnati to Fort
Meigs with some three hundred men, leaving a brigade of Kentucky
militia to follow him. April 12 he reached the fort, but not till
April 28 did Proctor appear at the mouth of the Maumee, with about
five hundred regulars and nearly as many militia,--nine hundred and
eighty-three whites, all told, and twelve hundred Indians under
Tecumthe and other chiefs.[95] Besides this large force, he brought
two twenty-four pound guns with other artillery from Detroit, and
two gunboats supported the land-battery. While the guns were placed
in position on the north bank of the river, the Indians crossed and
surrounded the fort on the south. May 1 the batteries opened, and
during four days kept up a heavy fire. Proctor, like Harrison, moved in
the wilderness as though he were conducting a campaign on the Rhine;
he liked regular modes of warfare, and with a force almost wholly
irregular, after allowing Fort Meigs to be built, he besieged it as
though he could take it by battering its earthen ramparts. Untaught
by his losses at the river Raisin, he gave once more advantage to
the Kentucky rifle; and with every opportunity of destroying the
reinforcement which he knew to be near, he allowed himself to be
surprised by it.
The Kentucky brigade of twelve hundred men, under Brigadier-General
Green Clay, had descended the Auglaize River in boats, and arrived
at Defiance May 3, where they learned that Fort Meigs was invested.
So neglectful of his advantages was Proctor that he not only failed
to prevent General Clay from advancing, but failed to prevent
communication between the besieged fort and the relief-column, so that
Harrison was able to arrange a general attack on the investing lines,
and came near driving the British force back to Malden with the loss
of all its artillery and baggage. At about nine o’clock on the morning
of May 5, Clay’s brigade descended the rapids, and eight hundred
and sixty-six men under Colonel William Dudley,[96] landing on the
north side of the river, surprised and took possession of the British
batteries, which were entirely unsupported. Had Clay’s whole force
been on the ground, and had it been vigorously pushed forward, the
small British division which held the north bank must have abandoned
all its positions; but Dudley’s men were under no discipline, and
though ready to advance were in no hurry to retreat, even when ordered.
Three companies of the British Forty-first, and some of the Canadian
militia soon gathered together; and although these could hardly have
been half the number of Dudley’s force,[97] yet with Tecumthe and a
body of Indians they attacked the batteries, drove the Kentuckians out,
dispersed them, and either captured or massacred the whole body, under
the eyes of Harrison and Fort Meigs.
This affair, though little less fatal to the Americans than that of the
river Raisin, was much less dearly bought by the British. Five hundred
prisoners fell into Proctor’s hands; two or three hundred more of the
Kentucky brigade, including “the weak and obstinate but brave”[98]
Dudley himself, must have been either killed in battle or massacred
after surrender;[99] only one hundred and seventy escaped; the boats
with the baggage were captured; while the whole British loss on the
north side of the river hardly exceeded fifty killed and wounded. A
bitter feeling against Proctor was caused by the massacre of some
forty American prisoners while under a British guard, and also, as was
alleged, under the eyes of General Proctor, who did not interpose,
although a soldier of the Forty-first was murdered in trying to
protect them. Probably all the prisoners would have been massacred had
Tecumthe not ridden up at full speed, tomahawk in hand, and threatened
to kill the first Indian who defied his authority.[100]
On the south side Harrison had better fortune, and Colonel John Miller
of the Nineteenth U. S. Infantry by a sortie gallantly captured a
battery, with some forty prisoners; but neither on the north nor on the
south did the fighting of May 5 decide any immediate military result.
Besides losing on the north bank half the reinforcement brought by
General Green Clay, Harrison had lost in the siege and in the sorties
on the south bank nearly three hundred men in killed and wounded.[101]
If the numbers loosely reported in the American accounts were correct,
the siege cost Harrison one thousand men, or fully half his entire
force, including his reinforcements. After the fighting of May 5, he
withdrew once more into the fort; the British batteries reopened fire,
and the siege went on. No further attempt was made to trouble the enemy
in open field. Harrison felt himself too weak for further ventures; yet
never had his chance of a great success been so fair.
Proctor’s siege of Fort Meigs was already a failure. Not only had the
fort proved stronger than he expected, but the weather was bad; his
troops were without shelter; dysentery and loss in battle rapidly
weakened them; half his militia went home, and, what was fatal to
further action, his Indians could not be held together. Within three
days after the battle of May 5, the twelve hundred Indians collected
by Tecumthe’s influence and exertions in the northwest territory
dispersed, leaving only Tecumthe himself and a score of other warriors
in the British camp.[102] Proctor had no choice but to retire as
rapidly as possible, and May 9 embarked his artillery and left his
encampment without interference from Harrison, who looked on as a
spectator while the movement was effected.
From that time until the middle of July Proctor remained quiet.
Harrison moved his headquarters to Upper Sandusky and to Cleveland, and
began to prepare for advance under cover of a naval force; but he was
not allowed to rest, even though Proctor might have preferred repose.
Proctor’s position was difficult. Told by Sir George Prevost[103]
that he must capture what supplies he needed from the Americans, and
must seek them at Erie and Cleveland, since Lower Canada could spare
neither food nor transport, he was compelled to look for support to the
American magazines. He was issuing ten thousand rations a day to the
Indian families at Malden, and his resources were near an end.[104]
Leaving Malden with either three hundred and ninety-one regulars,
or about five hundred regulars and militia, and by one British
account nearly a thousand Indians, by another between three and four
thousand,[105] Proctor returned by water to the Maumee Rapids July
20, and tried to draw the garrison of Fort Meigs into an ambush. The
attempt failed. General Green Clay, who was in command, had learned
caution, and imposed it on his troops. Proctor then found that his
Indians were leaving him and returning to Detroit and Amherstburg. To
occupy them, Proctor took again to his boats and coasted the Lake shore
as far as the Sandusky River, while the Indians who chose to accompany
him made their way by land. August 1 the expedition effected a landing
at the mouth of the Sandusky, and scattered panic into the heart of
Ohio.
In truth, nothing could be more alarming than this movement, which
threatened Harrison in all directions,--from Fort Meigs, on the Maumee,
to Erie, or Presqu’isle, where Perry’s fleet was building. On Sandusky
River Harrison had collected his chief magazines. All the supplies
for his army were lying at Upper Sandusky, some thirty miles above
the British landing-place, and he had only eight hundred raw recruits
to defend their unfortified position.[106] Nothing but an untenable
stockade, called Fort Stephenson, on the Sandusky River, where the
town of Fremont afterward grew, offered an obstacle to the enemy in
ascending; and Tecumthe with two thousand Indians was said to be
moving from Fort Meigs by the direct road straight for the magazines,
thus flanking Fort Stephenson and every intermediate position on the
Sandusky.
In just panic for the safety of his magazines, the only result of a
year’s campaigning, Harrison’s first thought was to evacuate Fort
Stephenson in order to protect Upper Sandusky. The flank-attack from
two thousand Indians, who never showed themselves, impelled him to
retire before Proctor, and to leave the river open. July 29, after a
council of war, he sent down a hasty order to young Major Croghan who
commanded Fort Stephenson, directing him immediately to burn the fort
and retreat up the river or along the Lake shore, as he best could,
with the utmost haste.[107] Croghan, a Kentuckian, and an officer of
the Seventeenth U. S. regiment, refused to obey. “We have determined
to maintain this place, and by Heaven, we will,” he wrote back.[108]
Harrison sent Colonel Wells, of the same regiment, to relieve him; but
Croghan went to headquarters, and by somewhat lame excuses carried his
point, and resumed his command the next day. Harrison gave him only
conditional orders to abandon the fort,--orders which Croghan clearly
could not regard, and which Harrison seemed to feel no confidence in
his wishing to follow.[109] In the face of British troops with cannon
he was to retreat; but “you must be aware that the attempt to retreat
in the face of an Indian force would be vain.” Proctor’s main force was
believed to be Indian.
Neither evacuating nor defending Fort Stephenson, Harrison remained
at Seneca, ten miles behind it, watching for Tecumthe and the
flank attack, and arranging a plan of battle for his eight hundred
men by which he could repel the Indians with dragoons in the open
prairie.[110] Croghan remained at Fort Stephenson with one hundred and
sixty men, making every preparation to meet an attack. August 1 the
woods were already filled with Indians, and retreat was impossible,
when the British boats appeared on the river, and Proctor sent to
demand surrender of the fort. Immediately on Croghan’s refusal, the
British howitzers opened fire and continued until it became clear that
they were too light to destroy the stockade.
If experience had been of service to Proctor, he should have learned to
avoid direct attack on Americans in fortified places; but his position
was difficult, and he was as much afraid of Harrison as Harrison was
afraid of him. Fearing to leave Croghan’s little fort in the rear,
and to seek Harrison himself, ten miles above, on the road to Upper
Sandusky; fearing delay, which would discontent his Indian allies;
fearing to go on to Cleveland or Erie without crippling Harrison; still
more afraid to retire to Malden without striking a blow,--Proctor again
sacrificed the Forty-first regiment which had suffered at the river
Raisin and had been surprised at Fort Meigs. On the afternoon of August
2 the Forty-first regiment and the militia, in three columns of about
one hundred and twenty men each,[111] with the utmost gallantry marched
to the pickets of Fort Stephenson, and were shot down. After two hours’
effort, and losing all its officers, the assaulting column retired,
leaving twenty-six dead, forty-one wounded, and about thirty missing,
or more than one fifth of their force. The same night the troops
re-embarked and returned to Malden.
Proctor’s report[112] of this affair was filled with complaints of
the Indians, who could not be left idle and who would not fight. At
Sandusky, he said, “we could not muster more hundreds of Indians than I
might reasonably have expected thousands.”
“I could not, therefore, with my very small force remain more than
two days, from the probability of being cut off, and of being
deserted by the few Indians who had not already done so.... On the
morning of the 2d inst. the gentlemen of the Indian department who
have the direction of it, declared formally their decided opinion
that unless the fort was stormed we should never be able to bring
an Indian warrior into the field with us, and that they proposed
and were ready to storm one face of the fort if we would attempt
another. I have also to observe that in this instance my judgment
had not that weight with the troops I hope I might reasonably
have expected.... The troops, after the artillery had been used
for some hours, attacked two faces, and impossibilities being
attempted, failed. The fort, from which the severest fire I ever
saw was maintained during the attack, was well defended. The troops
displayed the greatest bravery, the much greater part of whom
reached the fort and made every effort to enter; but the Indians
who had proposed the assault, and, had it not been assented to,
would have ever stigmatized the British character, scarcely came
into fire before they ran out of its reach. A more than adequate
sacrifice having been made to Indian opinion, I drew off the brave
assailants.”
Sir George Prevost seemed to doubt whether Proctor’s excuse for the
defeat lessened or increased the blame attached to it.[113] The defeat
at Sandusky ruined Proctor in the esteem of his men. On the American
side, Harrison’s conduct roused a storm of indignation. Through the
whole day, August 2, he remained at Seneca with eight hundred men,
listening to the cannonade at Fort Stephenson till late at night,
when he received an express from Croghan to say that the enemy were
embarking. The story ran, that as the distant sound of Croghan’s guns
reached the camp at Seneca, Harrison exclaimed: “The blood be on his
own head; I wash my hands of it.[114]” Whatever else might be true,
his conduct betrayed an extravagant estimate of his enemy’s strength.
The only British eye-witness who left an account of the expedition
reckoned Proctor’s force, on its departure from Malden, at about four
hundred troops, and “nearly a thousand Indians.”[115] The Indians
dispersed until those with Proctor at Fort Stephenson probably numbered
two or three hundred,[116] the rest having returned to Detroit and
Malden. Harrison reported the British force as five thousand strong, on
the authority of General Green Clay.[117]
Whether the British force was large or small, Harrison’s arrangements
to meet it did not please Secretary Armstrong. “It is worthy of
notice,” he wrote long afterward,[118] “that of these two commanders,
always the terror of each other, one [Proctor] was now actually flying
from his supposed pursuer; while the other [Harrison] waited only the
arrival of Croghan at Seneca to begin a camp-conflagration and flight
to Upper Sandusky.”
The well-won honors of the campaign fell to Major George Croghan,
with whose name the whole country resounded. Whatever were the faults
of the two generals, Major Croghan showed courage and intelligence,
not only before and during the attack, but afterward in supporting
Harrison against the outcry which for a time threatened to destroy the
General’s authority. Immediately after the siege of Fort Stephenson
every energy of the northwest turned toward a new offensive movement by
water against Malden, and in the task of organizing the force required
for that purpose, complaints of past failures were stifled. Secretary
Armstrong did not forget them, but the moment was not suited for
making a change in so important a command. Harrison organized, under
Armstrong’s orders, a force of seven thousand men to cross the Lake in
boats, under cover of a fleet.
The fleet, not the army, was to bear the brunt of reconquering the
northwest; and in nothing did Armstrong show his ability so clearly
as in the promptness with which, immediately after taking office, he
stopped Harrison’s campaign on the Maumee, while Perry was set to work
at Erie. Feb. 5, 1813, Armstrong entered on his duties. March 5 his
arrangements for the new movements were already made. Harrison did not
approve them,[119] but he obeyed. The Navy Department had already begun
operations on Lake Erie, immediately after Hull’s surrender; but though
something was accomplished in the winter, great difficulties had still
to be overcome when February 17 Commander Perry, an energetic young
officer on gunboat service at Newport, received orders from Secretary
Jones to report to Commodore Chauncey on Lake Ontario. Chauncey ordered
him to Presqu’isle, afterward called Erie, to take charge of the
vessels under construction on Lake Erie. March 27 he reached the spot,
a small village in a remote wilderness, where timber and water alone
existed for the supply of the fleets.
When Perry reached Presqu’isle the contractors and carpenters had
on the stocks two brigs, a schooner, and three gunboats. These were
to be launched in May, and to be ready for service in June. Besides
these vessels building at Erie, a number of other craft, including
the prize brig “Caledonia,” were at the Black Rock navy-yard in the
Niagara River, unable to move on account of the British fort opposite
Buffalo and the British fleet on the Lake. Perry’s task was to unite
the two squadrons, to man them, and to fight the British fleet, without
allowing his enemy to interfere at any stage of these difficult
operations.
The British squadron under Commander Finnis, an experienced officer,
had entire control of the Lake and its shores. No regular garrison
protected the harbor of Presqu’isle; not two hundred men could be
armed to defend it, nor was any military support to be had nearer than
Buffalo, eighty miles away. Proctor or Prevost were likely to risk
everything in trying to destroy the shipyard at Erie; for upon that
point, far more than on Detroit, Fort Meigs, Sandusky, or Buffalo,
their existence depended. If Perry were allowed to control the Lake,
the British must not only evacuate Detroit, but also Malden, must
abandon Tecumthe and the military advantages of three or four thousand
Indian auxiliaries, and must fall back on a difficult defensive at the
Niagara River. That they would make every effort to thwart Perry seemed
certain.
Superstition survived in nothing more obstinately than in faith in
luck; neither sailors nor soldiers ever doubted the value of this
inscrutable quality in the conduct of war. The “Chesapeake” was an
unlucky ship to the luckiest commanders, even to the British captain
who captured it. The bad luck of the “Chesapeake” was hardly steadier
than the good luck of Oliver Perry. Whatever he touched seemed to
take the direction he wanted. He began with the advantage of having
Proctor for his chief enemy; but Harrison, also a lucky man, had the
same advantage and yet suffered constant disasters. Commander Finnis
was a good seaman, yet Finnis failed repeatedly, and always by a
narrow chance, to injure Perry. Dearborn’s incompetence in 1813 was
not less than it had been in 1812; but the single success which in two
campaigns Dearborn gained on the Niagara obliged the British, May 27,
to evacuate Fort Erie opposite Buffalo, and to release Perry’s vessels
at Black Rock. June 6, at leisure, Perry superintended the removal of
the five small craft from the navy-yard at Black Rock; several hundred
soldiers, seamen, and oxen warped them up stream into the Lake. Loaded
with stores, the little squadron sailed from Buffalo June 13; the wind
was ahead; they were five days making eighty miles; but June 19 they
arrived at Presqu’isle, and as the last vessel crossed the bar, Finnis
and his squadron came in sight. Finnis alone could explain how he, a
first-rate seaman, with a strong force and a fair wind, in such narrow
seas, could have helped finding Perry’s squadron when he knew where it
must be.
From June 19 to August 1 Perry’s combined fleet lay within the bar at
Presqu’isle, while Proctor, with a sufficient fleet and a military
force superior to anything on the Lake, was planning expeditions from
Malden against every place except the one to which military necessity
and the orders of his Government bade him go. August 4, Perry took
out the armaments of his two brigs and floated both over the bar into
deep water. Had the British fleet been at hand, such a movement would
have been impossible or fatal; but the British fleet appeared just as
Perry’s vessels got into deep water, and when for the first time an
attack could not be made with a fair hope of success.
These extraordinary advantages were not gained without labor, energy,
courage, and wearing anxieties and disappointments. Of these Perry had
his full share, but no more; and his opponents were no better off than
himself. By great exertions alone could the British maintain themselves
on Lake Ontario, and to this necessity they were forced to sacrifice
Lake Erie. Sir George Prevost could spare only a new commander with
a few officers and some forty men from the lower Lake to meet the
large American reinforcements on the upper. When the commander, R. H.
Barclay, arrived at Malden in June, he found as many difficulties there
as Perry found at Presqu’isle. Barclay was a captain in the British
Royal Navy, thirty-two years old; he had lost an arm in the service,
but he was fairly matched as Perry’s antagonist, and showed the
qualities of an excellent officer.
Perry’s squadron, once on the Lake, altogether overawed the British
fleet, and Barclay’s only hope lay in completing a vessel called the
“Detroit,” then on the stocks at Amherstburg. Rough and unfinished,
she was launched, and while Perry blockaded the harbor, Barclay, early
in September, got masts and rigging into her, and armed her with guns
of every calibre, taken from the ramparts.[120] Even the two American
twenty-four pound guns, used by Proctor against Fort Meigs, were put
on board the “Detroit.” Thus equipped, she had still to be manned; but
no seamen were near the Lake. Barclay was forced to make up a crew of
soldiers from the hardworked Forty-first regiment and Canadians unused
to service. September 6 the “Detroit” was ready to sail, and Barclay
had then no choice but to fight at any risk. “So perfectly destitute of
provisions was the port 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.”[121]
Early on the morning of September 9 Barclay’s fleet weighed and sailed
for the enemy, who was then at anchor off the island of Put-in-Bay
near the mouth of Sandusky River. The British squadron consisted of
six vessels,--the “Detroit,” a ship of four hundred and ninety tons,
carrying nineteen guns, commanded by Barclay himself; the “Queen
Charlotte” of seventeen guns, commanded by Finnis; the “Lady Prevost”
of thirteen guns; the “Hunter” of ten; the “Little Belt” carrying
three, and the “Chippeway” carrying one gun,--in all, sixty-three guns,
and probably about four hundred and fifty men. The American squadron
consisted of nine vessels,--the “Lawrence,” Perry’s own brig, nearly
as large as the “Detroit,” and carrying twenty guns; the “Niagara,”
commander Jesse D. Elliott, of the same tonnage, with the same
armament; the “Caledonia,” a three-gun brig; the schooners “Ariel,”
“Scorpion,” “Somers,” “Porcupine,” and “Tigress,” carrying ten guns;
and the sloop “Trippe,” with one gun,--in all, fifty-four guns, with
a nominal crew of five hundred and thirty-two men, and an effective
crew probably not greatly differing from the British. In other respects
Perry’s superiority was decided, as it was meant to be. The Americans
had thirty-nine thirty-two pound carronades; the British had not a gun
of that weight, and only fifteen twenty-four pound carronades. The
lightest guns on the American fleet were eight long twelve-pounders,
while twenty-four of the British guns threw only nine-pound shot, or
less. The American broadside threw at close range about nine hundred
pounds of metal; the British threw about four hundred and sixty. At
long range the Americans threw two hundred and eighty-eight pounds of
metal; the British threw one hundred and ninety-five pounds. In tonnage
the Americans were superior as eight to seven. In short, the Navy
Department had done everything reasonably necessary to insure success;
and if the American crews, like the British, were partly made up of
landsmen, soldiers or volunteers, the reason was in each case the same.
Both governments supplied all the seamen they had.
Between forces so matched, victory ought not to have been in doubt;
and if it was so, the fault certainly lay not in Perry. When, at
daylight September 10, his look-out discovered the British fleet, Perry
got his own squadron under way, and came down with a light wind from
the southeast against Barclay’s line, striking it obliquely near the
head. Perry must have been anxious to fight at close range, where his
superiority was as two to one, while at long range his ship could use
only two long twelve-pounders against the “Detroit’s” six twelves,
one eighteen, and two twenty-fours,--an inferiority amounting to
helplessness. Both the “Lawrence” and the “Niagara” were armed for
close fighting, and were intended for nothing else. At long range their
combined broadside, even if all their twelve-pounders were worked on
one side, threw but forty-eight pounds of metal; at short range the two
brigs were able to throw six hundred and forty pounds at each broadside.
Perry could not have meant to fight at a distance, nor could Commander
Elliott have thought it good seamanship. Yet Perry alone acted on this
evident scheme; and though his official account showed that he had
himself fought at close range, and that he ordered the other commanders
to do the same, it gave no sufficient reasons to explain what prevented
the whole fleet from acting together, and made the result doubtful. He
did not even mention that he himself led the line in the “Lawrence,”
with two gunboats, the “Ariel” and the “Scorpion,” supporting him, the
“Caledonia,” “Niagara,” and three gunboats following. The “Lawrence”
came within range of the British line just at noon, the wind being very
light, the Lake calm, and Barclay, in the “Detroit,” opposite. Perry’s
report began at that point:--
“At fifteen minutes before twelve the enemy commenced firing;
at five minutes before twelve the action commenced on our part.
Finding their fire very destructive, owing to their long guns,
and its being mostly directed to the ‘Lawrence,’ I made sail (at
quarter-past twelve) and directed the other vessels to follow, for
the purpose of closing with the enemy. Every brace and bowline
being shot away, she became unmanageable, notwithstanding the
great exertions of the sailing-master. In this situation she
sustained the action upwards of two hours, within canister-shot
distance, until every gun was rendered useless, and a greater part
of the crew either killed or wounded. Finding she could no longer
annoy the enemy, I left her in charge of Lieutenant Yarnall, who, I
was convinced from the bravery already displayed by him, would do
what would comport with the honor of the flag. At half-past two,
the wind springing up, Captain Elliott was enabled to bring his
vessel, the ‘Niagara,’ gallantly 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, giving a raking
fire to them from the starboard guns, and to a large schooner and
sloop, from the larboard side, at half pistol-shot distance. The
smaller vessels at this time having got 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 sloop making a vain attempt to escape.”
From this reticent report, any careful reader could see that for some
reason, not so distinctly given as would have been the case if the
wind alone were at fault, the action had been very badly fought on the
American side. The British official account confirmed the impression
given by Perry. Barclay’s story was as well told as his action was
well fought:--
“At a quarter before twelve I commenced the action by a few long
guns; about a quarter-past, the American commodore, also supported
by two schooners, ... came to close action with the ‘Detroit.’ The
other brig [the ‘Niagara’] of the enemy, apparently destined to
engage the ‘Queen Charlotte,’ kept so far to windward as to render
the ‘Queen Charlotte’s’ twenty-four pounder carronades useless,
while she was, with the ‘Lady Prevost,’ exposed to the heavy and
destructive fire of the ‘Caledonia’ and four other schooners, armed
with heavy and long guns.... The action continued with great fury
until half-past two, when I perceived my opponent [the ‘Lawrence’]
drop astern, and a boat passing from him to the ‘Niagara,’ which
vessel was at this time perfectly fresh. The American commodore,
seeing that as yet the day was against him, ... made a noble and,
alas! too successful an effort to regain it; for he bore up, and
supported by his small vessels, passed within pistol-shot and took
a raking position on our bow.... The weather-gage gave the enemy a
prodigious advantage, as it enabled them not only to choose their
position, but their distance also, which they [the ‘Caledonia,’
‘Niagara,’ and the gunboats] did in such a manner as to prevent
the carronades of the ‘Queen Charlotte’ and ‘Lady Prevost’ from
having much effect, while their long ones did great execution,
particularly against the ‘Queen Charlotte.’”
Barclay’s report, agreeing with Perry’s, made it clear that while
Perry and the head of the American line fought at close quarters,
the “Caledonia,” “Niagara,” and the four gunboats supporting them
preferred fighting at long range,--not because they wanted wind, but
because the “Caledonia” and gunboats were armed with long thirty-two
and twenty-four pounders, while the British vessels opposed to them had
only one or two long twelve-pounders. Certainly the advantage in this
respect on the side of the American brig and gunboats was enormous;
but these tactics threw the “Niagara,” which had not the same excuse,
out of the battle, leaving her, from twelve o’clock till half-past
two, firing only two twelve-pound guns, while her heavy armament was
useless, and might as well have been left ashore. Worse than this,
the persistence of the “Caledonia,” “Niagara,” and their gunboats in
keeping, beyond range of their enemies’ carronades nearly lost the
battle, by allowing the British to concentrate on the “Lawrence” all
their heavy guns, and in the end compelling the “Lawrence” to strike.
On all these points no reasonable doubt could exist. The two reports
were the only official sources of information on which an opinion as to
the merits of the action could properly be founded. No other account,
contemporaneous and authoritative, threw light on the subject, except
a letter by Lieutenant Yarnall, second in command to Perry on the
“Lawrence,” written September 15, and published in the Ohio newspapers
about September 29,--in which Yarnall said that if Elliott had brought
his ship into action when the signal was given, the battle would have
ended in much less time, and with less loss to the “Lawrence.” This
statement agreed with the tenor of the two official reports.
Furious as the battle was, a more furious dispute raged over it when
in the year 1834 the friends of Perry and of Elliott wrangled over
the action. With their dispute history need not concern itself. The
official reports left no reasonable doubt that Perry’s plan of battle
was correct; that want of wind was not the reason it failed; but that
the “Niagara” was badly managed by Elliott, and that the victory, when
actually forfeited by this mismanagement, was saved by the personal
energy of Perry, who, abandoning his own ship, brought the “Niagara”
through the enemy’s line, and regained the advantage of her heavy
battery. The luck which attended Perry’s career on the Lake saved him
from injury, when every other officer on the two opposing flagships
and four-fifths of his crew were killed or wounded, and enabled him to
perform a feat almost without parallel in naval warfare, giving him a
well-won immortality by means of the disaster unnecessarily incurred.
No process of argument or ingenuity of seamanship could deprive Perry
of the fame justly given him by the public, or detract from the
splendor of his reputation as the hero of the war. More than any other
battle of the time, the victory on Lake Erie was won by the courage and
obstinacy of a single man.
Between two opponents such as Perry and Barclay, no one doubted that
the ships were fought to their utmost. Of the “Lawrence” not much
was left; ship, officers, and crew were shot to pieces. Such carnage
was not known on the ocean, for even the cockpit where the sick and
wounded lay, being above water, was riddled by shot, and the wounded
were wounded again on the surgeon’s board. Of one hundred and three
effectives on the “Lawrence,” twenty-two were killed and sixty-one
wounded. The brig herself when she struck was a wreck, unmanageable,
her starboard bulwarks beaten in, guns dismounted, and rigging cut to
pieces. The British ships were in hardly better condition. The long
guns of the gunboats had raked them with destructive effect. Barclay
was desperately wounded; Finnis was killed; Barclay’s first lieutenant
was mortally wounded; not one commander or second in command could
keep the deck; the squadron had forty-one men killed and ninety-four
wounded, or nearly one man in three; the “Detroit” and “Queen
Charlotte” were unmanageable and fell foul; the “Lady Prevost” was
crippled, and drifted out of the fight. Perry could console himself
with the thought that if his ship had struck her flag, she had at least
struck to brave men.