The Battle of Lake Erie.
Before Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry could fight for control of Lake Erie he had to build his fleet. Construction of two brigs (two masted vessels) was already underway at Presque Isle when Perry arrived on the scene, in March 1813, relieving Lt. Jesse Elliot. Perry immediately found his biggest difficulties weren’t completing the ships, but manning and arming them. Cannon were brought to the shipyard from as far away as Chesapeake Bay. Perry found other small gunboats on the lake and added them to his fleet after the British abandoned Fort Erie in the spring. As the American squadron took shape the British was doing the same.
Commanded by Robert Barclay, the British squadron was likewise short of men. Barclay took troops from the Canadian militia and whatever experienced boat handlers he could find, and set out in two ships to ascertain whether Perry’s busy shipyard could be attacked. He found it too well defended to attack from water or shore. Guns intended for the British flagship HMS Detroit had been captured during a raid on York (now Toronto) and were in American hands. Probably the best built ship on Lake Erie, Detroit was armed with a hodgepodge of available guns. Some of them lacked firing locks and had to be fired by fuse or by filling the vents with gunpowder.
In July Perry’s ships were complete and he received a detachment of seamen from Boston, including 50 hands who had served in the Constitution when it defeated Guerriere and Java the preceding year. After completing the backbreaking job of getting Perry’s ships over the sandbar which protected the entrance of the harbor, the fleet began operations on Lake Erie in August, 1813. Barclay, low on supplies, could do little and after Perry cruised from Sandusky, where he received further volunteers for his ships from the Army of the Northwest, in the form of gunners, he sailed to Amherstberg and then to establish an anchorage at Put-in-Bay, effectively blockading Barclay.
Barclay’s supplies continued to dwindle and the presence of the large number of Tecumseh’s warriors and their families on the Thames River put further pressure on the British. Barclay had no choice but to give battle to the Americans at Put-in-Bay. Reinforced by some sailors and officers from a British merchantman at Quebec, Barclay sailed to the American anchorage. The Americans sighted the British in the morning of September 9, 1813, and with Perry in the lead in the new brig USS Lawrence sailed to meet them. Perry was flying a blue flag which read “Don’t Give Up The Ship”, the dying words of his friend James Lawrence, who was killed in battle during the capture of USS Chesapeake.
The Battle of Lake Erie was a complete victory for the Americans and led to the later capture of Amherstberg and the attack on Tecumseh’s forces at the Battle of the Thames. Perry established the precedent of a US commander of a naval force transferring his flag in the heat of battle when his flagship could no longer serve. America retained control of Lake Erie for the rest of the war. All six of the Royal Navy vessels involved in the battle were captured. It was the first decisive action of the United States Navy which affected the land campaigns carried out in the war, indeed in any war. The victory also ensured that Pittsburgh and the Ohio Valley were secure from British attack.