Inside Oliver Hazard Perry’s Triumph at the Battle of Lake Erie

There would be no second chance, and U. S. Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry knew it.

As he approached six British warships on the morning of September 13, 1813, Perry was determined to end the naval campaign on Lake Erie that day. The nine-ship fleet he commanded had been built for this exact moment, and this moment only. If he lost the coming battle his ships would be destroyed, the British would control the lake, and America’s Northwest Territory would likely be lost. There would be no opportunity to try again.

That Perry’s fleet existed at all was something of a miracle, comprised of equal parts tenacity, back-breaking labor, British mistakes, and luck. For more than a year the United States and Britain had engaged in dual arms races on Lakes Ontario and Erie, struggling to build and man warships that could control the critical waterways. The tiny frontier settlements on both sides of the lakes lacked virtually everything needed to build, equip, and crew fighting ships. Skilled workers, sailors, sails, rigging, guns, powder, metal fittings: all had to brought hundreds of miles to the lakes over forest trails, unpaved roads, and barely navigable waterways.

The armies of the War of 1812 fought most battles within sight of the Great Lakes. These inland waterways were often the only way to move troops and control of them was vital.

The British had actually won the race – they had a small force of warships ready to sail by the end of 1812, more than six months before the Americans were able to field their fleet – but they failed to use their naval superiority to halt the American building effort.

Perry knew that the year-long effort to build and crew his ships and the British failure to intervene when they had the chance could not be repeated. His ships were literally irreplaceable.

So, when two hours of combat left his flagship shot to pieces all around him – rigging destroyed, half his guns out of action, blood pooling on the decks – Perry had no thought of quitting the fight. Clambering into his ship’s last surviving boat, he made his way to the largest U.S. vessel remaining and coolly steered her through the British line, raking their decks, ruining their ships, and forcing their surrender.

His victory saved America’s Northwest Territories and opened the way for General William H. Harrison’s invasion of Canada. Harrison’s eventual victory at the Battle of the Thamesbroke the British and Native American alliance and helped shape the peace termsbetween the United States and Great Britain. A remarkable achievement for a small fleet of hastily-constructed ships, manned by untrained crews, led by inexperienced officers.

A New Command

Perry’s part in the Lake Erie campaign began in February, 1813, when he was summoned by U. S. Navy Captain Isaac Chauncey, commander of American naval forces on the lakes. British ships on Lake Erie were threatening American settlements and the lack of U. S. warships derailed American plans to defend the region and invade Canada. The Americans were converting several unarmed schooners into gunboats at Black Rock, near Buffalo, New York, and were building four small armed schooners at Presque Isle Bay, at Erie, Pennsylvania. But resources were limited and progress was slow. Chauncey was preoccupied preparing for operations on Lake Ontario and he needed a capable and experienced officer to oversee the work on Lake Erie.

Oliver Hazard Perry seemed an obvious choice. A well-regarded officer, the 28-year-old Perry was splitting his time commanding a mostly-idle squadron of gunboats at Newport, Rhode Island and agitating for a seagoing assignment.

But while Perry’s appointment might have seemed obvious to Chauncey, Perry, and the Navy Department, it was not at all obvious to Lieutenant Jesse Elliott, already serving on the lakes and who had recently led a daring raid on the Niagara River that captured one British brig and destroyed another.

Unsurprisingly, Elliott and Perry would have a frosty relationship that would deteriorate markedly after Elliott’s lacklustre performance at the Battle of Lake Erie. But as Perry prepared to journey overland to Erie, he had more pressing concerns than Elliott’s feelings.

Chauncey realized that the converted merchant ships and the small schooners being built would not be powerful enough to wrest control of the lake from the British, so he ordered Dan Dobbins, a skilled Lake Erie pilot who was overseeing construction at Erie, to build a pair of 20-gun brigs that would outgun the largest British ships on the lake. These sister ships would eventually become the USS Niagara and the USS Lawrence, and they would win the Battle of Lake Erie

Shipyard in the Wilderness

When Perry arrived at Lake Erie in mid-March, following an arduous 20-day journey from Newport, trees had been felled for the brigs, but construction had not yet begun. Building those ships would be Perry’s priority that spring and summer. But the obstacles he would face would be daunting.

The brigs were to be built to plans that had been drawn up for construction of the USS Hornet in Baltimore nearly ten years earlier. Captain Chauncey had been Hornet’s first commanding officer and he knew the capabilities of the ship. If actually built, the Lawrence and the Niagara would outclass any vessel the British had on Lake Erie.

But building two brigs in poorly-equipped “shipyards” in the thinly-populated forests surrounding the Great Lakes was nothing at all like building warships in well-provisioned seaports like Baltimore. Wood was certainly plentiful around the lakes – the trackless forests stretched for hundreds of miles in every direction – but skilled workers, sails, rigging, chains, nails, anchors, metal fittings, paint, guns, ammunition, and all the other necessary items were not. The town of Erie could not even provide housing for the workers who were arriving to build the vessels. In fact, the influx of laborers led to food rationing. Even the wood was problematic. The brigs were to be fashioned from trees that had been growing in the forest just a few weeks before. Planks from green or unseasoned wood was prone to warping or splitting once the ships were launched.

Perry didn’t have a year to wait for the timber to dry. The fleet wasn’t being constructed to rule the waves for the next 40 years; they were being hastily thrown together to defeat the British in one decisive battle. They would win, and gain control of the lake, or lose, and be destroyed or captured as prizes. Either way, the use of freshly cut wood wasn’t going to make much difference, as long as the ships held together long enough to fight.

Of course, with British warships already operational, Perry would need a large measure of luck and some timely British errors just to get his ships onto the lake. Remarkably, he got both.

The yards at Black Rock and Presque Isle were vulnerable to British amphibious raids. With no ships of his own on the lake, Perry was powerless to stop them. But the local British army commander, Brigadier General Henry Proctor, was operating against American forces near the Maumee River at the western end of the lake, and he could not spare the men.

Even without a ground assault, the British naval commander on Lake Erie, Commodore Robert H. Barclay, believed he could prevent Perry from getting his ships onto the lake. For one thing, geography favored the British. The building yard at Black Rock was on the Niagara River, two miles upstream from Lake Erie. The Niagara doesn’t flow into Lake Erie, it drains into Lake Ontario, plunging over Niagara Falls on the way. To reach Lake Erie from Black Rock, the Americans would need to tow their gunboats against a racing four-knot current and pass beneath the guns of Fort Erie, a British fortification on the Canadian side of the Niagara River. And if they made it past the enemy batteries, the Americans would likely have to contend with Barclay’s ships, as he planned to remain nearby and attack any American ships that made it out of the river.

The yard at Presque Isle posed fewer problems for the Americans, but not by much. There was no current to fight, and the British occupied no forts on the American shore, but the entrance to the bay was blocked by a sandbar. While the bar kept Barclay’s ships from sailing into the bay and pulverizing the American shipyard, it also prevented Perry from getting his ships out.

But getting his vessels into the lake was a problem for another day. Perry’s immediate task was to build them, and to do that he needed to find a way to protect them from possible British attack.

The British weren’t coming, but Perry didn’t know it. What he did know was that there were no fortifications or soldiers at Presque Isle. As soon as he arrived, he ordered construction of a blockhouse to defend the shipyard and arranged for the deployment of troops from the local Pennsylvania militia.

With rudimentary defences in place, and Dobbins on hand to manage construction of the brigs, Perry set out on a series of trips to Pittsburgh to obtain whatever building materials and supplies he could scrape up. He was also hoping to locate 200 carpenters and shipbuilders who had been sent from the east coast to work on the brigs at Erie, but who had not yet arrived. Each journey to Pittsburgh, by road and water, took three days.

With more than 5,000 residents – ten times Erie’s population – Pittsburgh was already an industrial city, boasting metalworking shops, foundries, glass works, textile mills, warehouses, and a wide range of businesses. Much of what Perry needed could be found there, although some items, as well as experienced shipbuilders, would have to come from cities with large shipyards, like Philadelphia and New York.

The Strategic Situation

Though it was likely small comfort to Perry, Barclay’s supply problems were even worse. The British commander based his ships at Amherstberg, on the Detroit River at the western end of the lake. His building materials and men for his crews had to come from York – now Toronto – on Lake Ontario, or Montreal, more than 500 miles away. While the British enjoyed freedom of movement on Lake Erie, American forces on Lake Ontario were a constant threat.

Barclay’s situation was made immeasurably worse in April when Chauncey attacked York, destroying armaments and other supplies that were intended for Barclay’s ships.

Perry eventually secured iron, canvas, cordage, rigging, anchors, cannon balls, and other equipment at Pittsburgh. Soon, 150 ship carpenters reached Erie from New York City and sailmakers, block-makers, and riggers arrived from Philadelphia. A total of 65 cannons were sent to Erie, most from Washington and some from Sackett’s Harbor. The journey from Washington with the guns took more than a month.

As supplies, equipment, and workers trickled into Erie, progress on the ships quickened. Two small schooners were launched in April, and another in May. The Lawrence was launched on June 25 and the Niagara and the last of the smaller ships were launched on July 4.

By then, one of Perry’s bigger problems had been partially solved by Chauncey. In May, American ships ferried U. S. soldiers across the mouth of the Niagara River on Lake Ontario, where they captured Fort George. The loss of the fort forced the British to abandon the entire Niagara Peninsula, including Fort Erie, and retreat towards York, opening the way for Perry to sail his gunboats onto Lake Erie.

Even without the threat of British cannon fire, however, getting the gunboats from Black Rock to Lake Erie was a Herculean task. Using oxen to tow the ships against the strong current and uncooperative winds, the transit took an entire week. Once on the lake, Perry, and the 55 sailors he brought with him, set sail for Erie. On the way, they narrowly avoiding Barclay’s more powerful force by staying close to shore and slipping past the British during a fortunate lake fog.

By mid-July, construction of Perry’s little fleet of three brigs, four schooners and six gunboats was complete, though the Lawrence and the Niagara remained on the wrong side of the sand bar. Now, Perry needed to find crews for his vessels.

Perry had enough sailors to get the gunboats to Erie, but naval warfare in the age of sail was a labor-intensive business, and he needed more than 500 men to properly crew his fleet. He had fewer than one hundred. Throughout the winter and spring, the Navy Department had dispatched hundreds of sailors to the lakes, ostensibly to crew American ships on both Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. But Chauncey, whose ships were already sparring with the British on Lake Ontario, kept nearly all of them.

But now it was July, Perry’s ships were ready, and Barclay’s fleet was somewhere on the lake. Both Perry and the Navy Department ordered more sailors to Lake Erie, but Chauncey hesitated. In early July he promised Perry that he would send 120 men, far fewer than what Perry needed. The Navy Department responded with another letter, pointing out that Perry needed more than 400 additional sailors and directed Chauncey to send Perry at least enough men to crew all of the smaller ships and one of the brand-new brigs.

In mid-July, Chauncey did send 115 men to Perry – not quite the promised 120, and still far too few, but it was something. By now though, Perry was thoroughly aggravated and he responded with an ill-advised letter complaining about the quality of the sailors Chauncey had sent.

It seems likely that Chauncey’s officers, when directed to send members of their crews to Perry, picked the men that they would miss the least, so there was probably some basis for Perry’s complaint. But in the meantime, Perry would have to make do with what he could get. His biggest problem was obtaining enough hands to get his ships underway. And if the men he received needed more training, he would have to provide it. Realizing that he wasn’t likely to get the crews he needed from Chauncey, Perry asked for volunteers from the local militia. Around 60 men volunteered while another 35 signed up to serve as marines aboard the ships.

Still critically short of trained hands, Perry now turned his attention to his last major problem: moving Niagara and Lawrence over the sandbar and onto the lake. Perry and his shipbuilders had had six months to think about how they would accomplish this next task.

Perry’s Big Gamble

In those days before accurate nautical charts, professional sailors all knew the basic technique for crossing a sandbar or freeing a grounded vessel: lighten the ship by removing everything that wasn’t permanently attached and haul the vessel – rocking it if necessary – to deeper water.

But the water over the bar at Presque Isle was nearly four feet too shallow for the brigs. The ships could not be lightened enough to get over the sand. So, Noah Brown, the master shipbuilder who had been overseeing construction of the brigs, decided to use wooden “camels” — large, rectangular boxes or barges — to lift the brigs over the bar. Each would be filled with water and attached to the sides of the ships. When the water was pumped out of the camels they would float higher in the water, pulling the brigs up with them. When the ships were high enough, they could be hauled over the sandbar.

While workable, the technique had one significant drawback for Perry. The brigs would still need to be lightened as much as possible, so when they crossed the bar they would be without sails, rigging, guns, and powder. This would be disastrous if Barclay and his fleet appeared before the ships’ equipment and armaments could be returned aboard.

Which is exactly what happened.

Throughout July, Barclay’s squadron had remained in the vicinity of Presque Isle, preventing Perry from passing his ships over the bar. But on July 31, the British departed, presumably to obtain fresh supplies. Perry considered that his opponent’s movement might be a ruse, but seized the opportunity anyway. On Aug. 1, he sent his smaller ships over the bar into the lake, where they formed a protective screen. Perry’s men then set to work bringing the Lawrence over the sand. It took three tries, and the removal of the ship’s masts and yards, in addition to guns, ballast, and everything else they had taken off earlier, but by mid-morning on Aug. 3 Lawrence was across. By midnight her armament was back aboard.

The next day, the Americans brought Niagara across, too. Having learned a great deal during their struggle with Lawrence, Perry’s men got Niagara across in one try. But halfway through, while the unarmed Niagara was still stuck on the sand, Barclay reappeared.

For the British, this was the payoff — the reward for all the effort they had spent building their ships and blockading the Americans. Barclay may have failed to destroy Perry’s ships while they were still being built, and he had allowed the Americans to slip past him at Black Rock, but now he only needed to close the distance, scatter the smaller ships, and wreck the immobile and un-armed American brig with cannon fire.

But surprisingly, Barclay hesitated. The American gunboats formed a line of battle, and from a distance he could not tell if the larger brigs were ready for action. Wary of the American ships and aware that his own crews were understrength and undertrained he suddenly found himself reluctant to risk his fleet. He withdrew. Energized by their close call with disaster, the Americans completed the movement of Niagara and rapidly re-armed the vessel.

Perry’s fleet now outgunned Barclay’s. The British were nearly finished building the brig Detroit at Amherstberg, and her completion would give the British a slight advantage. But until then, with a more powerful fleet and more secure supply lines, Perry could dictate the course of events on the lake.

Perry still needed men to fill out his ships’ crews, and on Aug. 9 he received a final group of 101 officers and men from Chauncey. Perry now had more than 400 men. Not as many as he would have liked, but it was clear he wasn’t going to get any more from Chauncey.

On Aug. 11, he set sail for Put-in-Bay, an island at the western end of the lake, where he would continue to prepare his ships and crews for battle and monitor British naval activity. On arrival, he received 100 frontier militiamen from General William H. Harrison, commander of American ground forces, to serve aboard the American ships as marines.

Perry’s presence in the lake’s western basin cut the British supply line between their base at Fort Malden on the Detroit River and their source of supply on Long Point. As food stocks dwindled, Barclay had no choice but to come out and fight. As soon as the Detroit was completed, he sailed.

Beat to Quarters

Though the six British ships mounted more guns than the nine American ships – 63 to 54 – Perry was eager to fight. Once the battle began, even the near-destruction of his flagship, the USS Lawrence, didn’t stop him. His audacious maneuvering through the British line aboard the Niagara won the battle. “We have met the enemy and they are ours,” he famously wrote to Harrison. “two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop.”

The victory at Lake Erie was a remarkable achievement for the Americans. They built six wooden warships in eight months in a scarcely populated wilderness where, except for wood, nothing they needed was available. Of the hundreds of Americans who participated in the campaign, Oliver Hazard Perry is best-remembered, though many other men made critical contributions. Yet it was Perry’s relentless determination in building and manning his ships and his unwavering courage at the Battle of Lake Erie that won the Lake Erie campaign.