Brief biographies from American history, for the fifth and sixth grades

by Edna Henry Lee Turpin

After danger of war with France was over, young Perry still continued in the navy. His next service was in the Mediterranean against the Barbary States. These states,—Tunis, Algiers, Tripoli, and Morocco—on the north coast of Africa, had for hundreds of years made a business of piracy. They captured vessels, and used or sold the stores and sold the crews into slavery. America, like England and other countries, for years bribed them not to molest its vessels. At last the Americans determined, instead of paying tribute, longer, to send a fleet to the Barbary coast and force the pirates to respect the American flag. Oliver Perry was on a ship sent in 1802. The fleet cruised about and did little fighting and his ship was recalled to America in 1803.

The most daring deed of the war was performed by a young American lieutenant, Stephen Decatur. An American ship, the Philadelphia, had fallen into the hands of the Barbary pirates and Lieutenant Decatur went into the harbor with a few men in a boat and set fire to the vessel to prevent its being manned by the Tripolitans. The Barbary ruler finally made a treaty of peace with the United States. In the war Perry had had no special opportunity to distinguish himself, but he had proved himself brave and efficient.

When the war against England began in 1812, it seemed that American chances for sea victory were small. England, the mistress of the seas, had a large, well-equipped navy; the American fleet was far inferior in numbers and in size. But the Americans had brave seamen who won some brilliant victories. One of the greatest of these was that of the American vessel the Constitution over the English Guerriére.

The command of the Great Lakes was very important; being on the boundary between the United States and the English colony of Canada, they controlled the entrance to each country. When the war opened, the English had a naval force on the Great Lakes, the Americans had none. A fleet could not be made ready without delay, and an American army under General Hull was sent to invade Canada. General Hull surrendered the fort at Detroit without attempting to defend it, and the English took also Fort Dearborn, on the site of Chicago.

To protect the northern coast, Lieutenant Oliver Perry was sent to build a fleet on Lake Erie and to fight the British there. This was a great undertaking. There was no railroad or canal connecting the western with the eastern part of New York. Nails, sails, guns, powder, shot, and supplies of all kinds had to be carried on ox wagons along the rough roads and on boats up the streams. Perry did not lose time bemoaning the difficulty of the task. The very day that he received his orders he started carpenters to the lake; having arranged about men and supplies, he himself set forth in the depth of winter. In the spring, followed men bringing needed stores. In a few months Perry had a little fleet built of trees which were standing in the forest the summer before. “Give me men,” he wrote, “and I will acquire both for you and for myself honor and glory on this lake, or die in the attempt.”

In September, 1813, the American ships sailed forth and the English fleet, which was about equal in men and guns, made ready to attack. Lieutenant Perry hoisted a flag bearing the words, “Don’t give up the ship,” the dying speech of brave Captain Lawrence for whom the flag-ship was named. The English attacked gallantly, and Perry’s ship was so injured that “hammered out of his own ship,” he had to go in a row-boat to the Niagara. With him he took his flag and Captain Lawrence’s brave words waved as a signal from the Niagara. The Americans raked the English decks with a deadly broadside. The British fought bravely till their ships were crippled and most of their officers and many of their men were wounded. Then the whole squadron was surrendered,—the first time that this fate ever befell the British in a naval battle.

In honor of Captain Lawrence, Perry was determined that the surrender should take place on the Lawrence, so he returned to that vessel and there received the swords of the British officers. On the back of an old letter he wrote his famous dispatch to General Harrison: “We have met the enemy and they are ours—two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop. Yours with very great respect and esteem, O. H. Perry.” This battle of Lake Erie prevented the English and French invasion of the United States and made it possible for the Americans to invade Canada. Perry was made captain, then the highest rank in the American navy. This ended his service in the war of 1812.

In 1816 Captain Perry was sent against the Algerian pirates who were again troublesome. The ruler finally signed a treaty of peace and Perry returned without having had to fight. Two years later, in 1819, he was ordered to Venezuela to protest against seizures of American vessels and to present claims for losses. He succeeded in his mission, but he did not live to return home, dying of yellow fever on his thirty-fourth birthday, August 23, 1819. His body was brought home in a war-vessel and buried with military honors at Newport, Rhode Island.

Another hero of the war of 1812 was Thomas Macdonough, “the hero of Lake Champlain,” who won a decisive victory against odds of men, guns, and ships. Thomas Macdonough was born in Delaware and entered the navy when he was sixteen.

In 1803 he sailed on the frigate Philadelphia bound for Tripoli. At Gibraltar he was left in charge of a captured Moorish ship. The Philadelphia, as you know, was taken by the Tripolitans; its crew was kept in close confinement nearly two years. Macdonough served on board the Enterprise, commanded by Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, and he was one of the seventy men who captured and destroyed the Philadelphia, which Admiral Nelson declared to be “the most bold and daring act of the age.” For his gallantry on this occasion, Macdonough was made lieutenant.