BATTLE OF LAKE ERIE, SEPT. 10, 1813.
The next day after this, August 17th, Perry took his squadron to the point of the peninsula that forms Sandusky Bay and fired signal-guns to apprise General Harrison, who was camped not far away, of the presence of the American ships. On the night of the 19th General Harrison, his staff, and a lot of soldiers and friendly Indians, came off to visit the squadron and talk over plans for a descent upon Malden. Nothing definite was decided on, however, for Harrison was not quite ready to move, and so, on the 23d, the Harrison party having gone away, Perry decided to have a look for himself at the new British ship at Malden. But before he could carry out his purpose he was prostrated by the bilious fever that had been upon him since he had brought the five vessels out of Niagara River. And what was as bad, a very large proportion of his men were in the same distressing condition. The fleet surgeon, Dr. P. Usher Parsons, was himself so ill that he could not walk, but was carried around on a cot to visit the sick, and there were continually more than one hundred of the command prostrated.
This enterprise having been abandoned, the fleet anchored at Put-in Bay once more on August 27th, and there a reinforcement of thirty-six soldiers came on board from General Harrison to act as marines and supply the places of the sick. But Perry remained sick for a week, and it was not until September 1st that the squadron got away to look at Malden. They got nothing more than a look, for the reason that Captain Barclay kept his fleet under the protection of the shore batteries, waiting for the completion of the Detroit. So Perry returned once more to Put-in Bay, and there he remained until September 10, 1813, the most famous date in the history of the Great Lakes, for then came the battle known to every school-boy as “Perry’s Victory.”
Because this was a battle between squadrons, and the first of that kind in American history, it is worth while considering in advance of the story of the action, what each commander had under him. To begin with the Americans: Perry had nine vessels—the brigs Lawrence, Niagara, and Caledonia, the schooners Ariel, Scorpion, Somers, Porcupine, and Tigress, and the sloop (single-masted vessel) Trippe. The big new brigs were one hundred and ten feet long and twenty-nine feet wide. They could have carried as merchantmen three hundred tons say of coal or grain. The schooners could not have carried more than from sixty to eighty tons of cargo, and the sloop was the smallest of all. The big brigs were armed as salt-sea brigs were—with two long twelves and eighteen short thirty-twos, and the rest were armed with a heavy gun each, so that the squadron as a whole in the battle threw, it is estimated, eight hundred and ninety-six pounds of metal from fifty-four guns, of which the long guns threw two hundred and eighty-eight pounds. On the day of battle, according to the roll that drew prize-money, the total number of all the men and boys who were connected with the fleet in any way was five hundred and thirty-two. Of these, four hundred and sixteen (the highest estimate) were on deck ready for the fray, and sixteen more (according to Lossing), though on the sick-list, left their beds and went to quarters—in all four hundred and thirty-two men, of whom one-fourth were regular naval seamen, one-fourth were raw militia, and one-fourth were lake sailors.
To oppose this fleet Captain Barclay had six vessels. The Detroit was a new ship (three square-rigged masts) and was a trifle larger than the Lawrence. She was armed with one long eighteen, two long twenty-fours, six long twelves, eight long nines, a short eighteen, and a short twenty-four. She was therefore more than a match, when at long range, for any three of the American ships so far as weight of metal was concerned. At short range the preponderance was against her. With the Detroit were the ship Queen Charlotte, a sixth smaller in size than the Lawrence; the Lady Prevost, a big schooner (230 tons measurement); the brig Hunter, of the size of the Caledonia; the little schooner Chippeway, and the big sloop (90 tons) Little Belt. All told, this squadron could throw four hundred and fifty-nine pounds of metal at a broadside from sixty-four guns, one hundred and ninety-five pounds being from long guns. The “smart Yankees,” although Erie was in days’ travel much farther from a base of supplies than the British were, had created a fleet under the eyes of the British, whose superiority “in long-gun metal was as three to two, and in carronade metal greater than two to one.” So says Roosevelt, an American writer. But it must be observed by every sailorman that this preponderance in weight of metal thrown was to a great extent nullified by the distribution of the American heavy long guns among the little merchant-schooners which Perry had been forced to adopt. For the small vessels formed very unstable platforms, and a discharge of the big guns set them rolling in a way to destroy accurate marksmanship. The British had nothing larger than a long twelve on their little vessels, and therein was wisdom. As the British had a tonnage of 1,460 in six vessels to the American 1,671 in nine vessels, there was a concentration of power in the British fleet of which Captain Barclay was able to take advantage. Nor was that all that may be said of the superiority of Barclay’s vessels, for four of the British fleet were built for war-ships. The difference between a war-ship and an armed merchantman was in those days as great as the difference between a protected cruiser and an armed merchantman in these would be. The sides of the man-of-war were made of frames set so close together as to almost touch each other, and were covered with thick planks. Doubtless the walls of Barclay’s four large vessels were more than a foot thick, and so proof against grape-shot. Five of Perry’s vessels had planking no more than two and a half inches thick—they could be set aleak by a musket-ball. Worse yet, four of Barclay’s vessels had big thick bulwarks, behind which the men were protected from grape-shot, while all of Perry’s except the two brigs were without bulwarks—their guns and crews were all in plain view and exposed to the fire of the enemy.
As to the number of men in the British fleet it is certain that they had four hundred and fifty men on deck, “fore and fit,” for this number is to be counted up from the prisoners taken with the killed, as admitted by the British authorities. But there were undoubtedly more. Captain Barclay, as appears by the order-books of the British, had in all one hundred and fifty picked men from the British Navy, eighty Canadian lake sailors, and two hundred and forty soldiers from the 41st Regiment of the line, and the Newfoundland Rangers—making four hundred and seventy men, to which sum must be added thirty-two officers known to have been in the fleet. This makes five hundred and two. As only four hundred and fifty can be counted among the prisoners paroled and taken to Camp Portage, it is fair to suppose that a few of the British crews went forward to help their wounded friends who were taken to Erie, that some escaped to the woods, and that more were killed than the British admit.
However it may be figured, the British had more men in the battle than Perry had, and they were concentrated on six ships where they could be of service, instead of scattered among nine vessels of which the majority were slow cargo-carriers, and sure to lag behind when the order to close with the enemy was given. Since Perry had enough men to work his guns, it may be conceded that his inferiority of numbers was a matter of no consequence whatever. But when the concentration of the enemy’s power in his large ships is considered—when it is recalled that the Detroit, for instance, had seventeen long guns with which to batter the Lawrence that had only two as she headed the dash into battle—seventeen long guns that could and did cut her to pieces before she could bring anything to bear save one long twelve—a candid student of history must say that the British squadron in its power, either for attack or defence against an attacking squadron, was, at the least, equal to the American squadron.
Last of all, and most important of all, comes a comparison of the commanders. To a certain extent this comparison has already been made. As has been told, Barclay, who was thirty-seven years old, came from Trafalgar. Perry, who was but twenty-seven, came from the Newport navy-yard. And that is to say that in experience Barclay was at least “hull down to windward” of the American commander. But experience is only one of the requisites of a great naval commander. It may seem presumptuous for a mere civilian to declare what the qualities of such a commander are; nevertheless, for the sake of a comparison of the two commanders in this battle, and for the sake of having some sort of a lead for trying the depth of them, it may be said that the acknowledged heroes of sea-warfare have shown:
Foresight and unwearied energy in preparing for battle; a bull-dog courage in the face of personal danger; a John-Paul-Jones tenacity of purpose—the good-will to fight while a plank with a gun floated; a calmness of observation—an eye uninfluenced by excitement when viewing the enemy; a judgment swift to take advantage of every emergency; the ability to inspire the men with confidence.
To a civilian it seems that after personal or animal courage the most important characteristic of a great commander in a squadron battle is the ability to take swift advantage of emergencies, for this, of course, implies his tenacity of purpose and his ability to see clear-eyed.