On 10 September 1813 an American squadron under Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry fought a British squadron under Commander Robert Heriot Barclay near Put-in-Bay on Lake Erie. Perry's flagship was shot to pieces, but he crossed to another brig in an open boat, broke the British line and forced the whole British squadron to surrender. The victory gave the United States control of Lake Erie and opened the way to win back Detroit. This page is a short guide to the day; the full story is in our article on Lake Erie, linked below.
Two squadrons built on the lake
The British held Lake Erie from the start of the war, the National Park Service writes, and Perry arrived in the spring of 1813 to challenge them. His ships were built from scratch at Presque Isle, Pennsylvania, and had to be floated over a sandbar one by one before they could sail; Barclay, who was blockading the harbor, lifted the blockade for reasons historians still do not understand, and Perry got his two big brigs, the Lawrence and the Niagara, over the bar on pontoons.1
On the day of the battle Perry had nine vessels with 54 guns against Barclay's six with 63, by the Park Service's count, and the American Battlefield Trust puts the crews at about 540 Americans and 450 British. Britannica likewise gives nine American ships against six British.2
Don't give up the ship
Perry flew a battle flag reading DONT GIVE UP THE SHIP, the words of Captain James Lawrence of the USS Chesapeake as he was carried below, mortally wounded, in June 1813. The first shot was fired at 11:45 a.m.. The Lawrence bore the brunt of the British fire, and by about 2:30 p.m. four of every five men aboard her were dead or wounded.3
Perry then lowered his flag, took four unwounded men into a small boat and rowed to the Niagara, commanded by Master Commandant Jesse Elliott. He sailed her straight into the British line, firing broadsides, and a few minutes after 3 p.m. the British surrendered. Barclay was badly wounded. The National Park Service says that the surrender of an entire British squadron had never happened before in British naval history.4
Losses are given slightly differently. The American Battlefield Trust counts 27 Americans killed and 96 wounded, and 41 British killed, 93 wounded and 306 missing or captured; Britannica gives the same American figures and 40 British killed and 94 wounded.5
We have met the enemy
After the battle Perry wrote to General William Henry Harrison: We have met the enemy and they are ours. Two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop. With the lake in American hands the British abandoned Detroit and fell back up the Thames River, and on 5 October Harrison's army beat them and their Native allies at the Battle of the Thames, where, as the Park Service notes, the Shawnee leader Tecumseh was killed. That battle is told in our article on the Thames, and the whole of Perry's fight in our article on Lake Erie.6
Britannica adds that the victory meant Britain could demand no territory in the Northwest in the peace settlement, and the Park Service that it helped keep Ohio and Michigan under American sovereignty.7
