Macdonough’s list of killed and wounded probably includes only the wounded sent to the hospital. It is as follows: Saratoga, twenty-eight killed and twenty-nine wounded; Eagle, thirteen killed and twenty wounded; Ticonderoga, six killed and six wounded; Preble, two killed; Boxer (gun-boat), three killed and one wounded; Centipede and Wilmer, one wounded on each. In all fifty-two were killed and fifty-eight wounded. Roosevelt thinks ninety more were slightly wounded, but if we go into the slightly wounded list, we find that almost every man on both the flagships was thumped or scratched in some way.
But we can determine the relative efficiency of the two crews much more readily by an examination of the hulls of the flagships. Keeping in mind that the two leading British ships had as great a weight of metal in long guns as the whole Yankee squadron, gun-boats and all, and that these two British ships were relentlessly firing at the American flagship during almost the entire time of the battle, a counting of the round-shot holes in the two flagships gives a measure of British and American marksmanship, which, though less to the credit of the Americans than in some other battles, is unmistakable. The Saratoga was struck by fifty-five round shot; the British Confiance by one hundred and five. And yet it was point-blank range, for long guns, over water that lay dead, while the first broadside from the Confiance was accurate. When the Yankees came to examine into this matter they learned how they had escaped. Having set their guns at the right range for the first broadside the British did not thereafter trouble themselves to look after the range. They loaded and fired “with fury”—with a whoop and a huzza! But each discharge pinched the wedge-shaped quoin a trifle from under the breech of their guns—lowered the breech and elevated the muzzle—so that very soon their shots were flying high over the Yankee hull. But the cooler Yankee gunners kept the quoins in place and the range good. Worse yet, on examining the British guns some were found with shot under the powder instead of on top, and some with wads at the bottom of the bore and some crammed to the muzzle—the veritable method of the tenderfoot on a runway, but not at all what is expected of an experienced naval tar. And yet the Confiance was manned by picked seamen.
When the fight was over Macdonough wrote the following letter to Secretary of the Navy William Jones:
“The Almighty has been pleased to grant us a signal victory on Lake Champlain, in the capture of one frigate, one brig, and two sloops of war of the enemy.”
This letter and his prayer on the quarter-deck have been often used in religious discourses—and very properly so. But for the sake of the honor of the flag, and with no desire whatever to lessen the reader’s reverence for sacred matters, one who has lived with sailors in both ends of the ship is impelled to declare that, for the purpose of rousing seamen to do their best when going into battle, one rooster in the rigging is worth a dozen prayers on the quarter-deck.
Because the Battle of Lake Champlain and that on Lake Erie were the only squadron battles of this war, it is worth while comparing the disposition of the forces made by the two youthful commanders who won.
Both Perry and Macdonough were very young for such responsible posts as they held—Perry was twenty-seven, and Macdonough was twenty-eight. Neither had ever had an independent command in battle before being called on to handle a squadron against an experienced enemy.
On Lake Erie Perry had the moral advantage, such as it was, of making the attack; he had also the physical advantage of a somewhat superior force. But these advantages were more than neutralized by the advantage which the enemy held in being able to concentrate his force to receive the attack and by the very light wind, which was still further deadened by the concussion of great guns after firing began. The lack of wind kept a great part of Perry’s fleet so far in the rear that the flagship near the head of the line had to stand the brunt of the battle—the concentrated fire of about all of the enemy’s squadron. Perry was also handicapped by the unexplained failure of Elliott to close in on the enemy. Commander Ward, in his “Naval Tactics,” written for the instruction of naval cadets, speaks of Perry’s oblique attack as “that which gallantry counselled rather than the more circuitous, perhaps more prudent, course” which would have taken Perry’s ship abreast of the British before running within gunshot. But when through gallantry he had lost his ship, practically, “and a less determined officer might have despaired of the day,” he “quit his own disabled ship for another” and “with consummate judgment and celerity, reformed the van of his squadron, composed of the heaviest ships, and not only retrieved his loss, but in a few minutes secured victory.” “This combination was most masterly,” says Ward, referring to what may be called Perry’s renewed attack. It was his gallantry combined with his splendid judgment and celerity of action that gave Perry enduring fame. The Battle of Lake Erie appealed to the sentiment as well as to the cold judgment of Perry’s countrymen, whether afloat or ashore, and now that more than eighty years have passed, his handling of the squadron, taking the battle as a whole, meets as hearty approval from naval officers as it did in the fall of 1813.
Quite different were the conditions, under which Macdonough had to fight. The force of the enemy was superior, and he rightly chose to receive rather than make the attack. As Barclay, the British commander on Lake Erie, concentrated his power as much as possible, so did Macdonough when awaiting the enemy. His choice of positions in Plattsburg Bay far outweighed the moral advantage which the British had in making an attack. And the rare judgment which Macdonough showed in preparing for the emergencies of battle far outweighed in the end the superior force—the very greatly superior force which the British possessed in the concentration of their long guns on a frigate and a brig.
Like Perry, Macdonough fought his own ship, giving no attention during a long period to the others of his squadron, after the battle began; with his own hands he worked a gun, and with perfect skill. His ship, like Perry’s, received the concentrated fire of the enemy and bore the greatest part of the loss. The winding of his ship at the supreme moment of the battle was a move like, in a way, that of Perry in going to the Niagara, and it was a move that, like Perry’s, won the day that had there-to-fore been disastrous to the Yankee fleet.