Perry’s despatch to General Harrison, it is worth telling, was written with a pencil on the back of an old letter. Perry used his cap in lieu of a table. When written, the despatch was entrusted to Midshipman Dulany Forest. Forest had been wounded in a curious fashion. A grape-shot struck the side of a port, glanced and struck a mast, and glancing again, struck down Forest as he stood beside Perry. Perry stooped and raised him up. He was unconscious for a moment, but quickly recovered, and getting on his feet, pulled the projectile from the inside of his clothing, through which it had penetrated, and put it in his pocket, saying:
“I guess this is mine.”
Perry’s letter to the Secretary of the Navy is worth quoting, for it was written when “a religious awe seemed to come over him at his wonderful preservation in the midst of great and long-continued danger.”
It read:
“It has pleased the Almighty to give to the arms of the United States a signal victory over their enemies on this lake. The British squadron, consisting of two ships, two brigs, a schooner and a sloop, have this moment surrendered to the force under my command, after a sharp conflict.”
It was characteristic of the man to say “surrendered to the force under my command,” rather than to say “surrendered to me.” And it is recorded that when he had given the needed orders for the care of the prisoners and the fleet, the reaction that followed the prolonged excitement was so great that, utterly weary, he stretched himself among his dead comrades on the deck of his ship, and with his sword still in hand, went fast to sleep.
The news of the victory spread over the nation with marvellous rapidity. The roar of the guns, conveyed by the water, was heard even at Erie. People at Cleveland gathered on the water-front, and when the last guns were fired cheered the name of Perry, because those last reports were from the heaviest guns, and they knew that the heaviest guns were on the American ships.
But while these men cheered, there were others who, living in the wild region about the head of the lake, and seeing for themselves where victory lay, instead of cheering, gathered their wives and little ones around them and out of full hearts gave thanks to Almighty God for his goodness. And they had good reason for so doing, for the capture of the enemy’s fleet meant more to them than the taking of ships. It meant that the inhuman Proctor, who, at the head of 5,000 mixed troops and Indians, was awaiting the news at Malden, would be barred from his intended incursion into Ohio—Proctor, who had looked on unmoved while the Indians, under Tecumseh, slaughtered the prisoners after the fall of Fort Miami. All the day of the battle on Lake Erie “women with terrified children, and decrepit old men, sat listening with the deepest anxiety, for they knew not but with the setting sun they would be compelled to flee to the interior to escape the fangs of the red blood-hounds who were ready to be let loose upon helpless innocency by the approved servants of a government that boasted of its civilization and Christianity.”
Perry had saved these from the terrors of the scalping-knife and the stake. His victory “led to the destruction of the Indian Confederacy and wiped out the stigma of the surrender at Detroit, thirteen months before. When Proctor heard the news he fled for his life, and was roundly denounced to his face for his cowardice by the brave and disgusted Tecumseh.”
Little less heartfelt were the rejoicings of the whole nation over this battle. “Illuminations, bonfires, salvos of artillery, public dinners, orations, and songs were the visible indications of the popular satisfaction, and it will not be forgotten that the most conspicuous feature of every illumination was a transparency that read: “We have met the enemy and they are ours.”