The events of the day had been most dramatic. This fight amid the wooded shores and extending arms of the bay was viewed from shore by hundreds of anxious Americans. The bright sunlight and calm surface of the lake, the enshrouding fog of smoke that from shore hid all but the spurts of flame and the topmasts and occasionally the flags of the vessels engaged, all had combined to make a drama of the most exciting and awe-inspiring interest. Nor was the last act to be a letting-down. Perry determined to receive the surrender of the defeated enemy nowhere else but on the deck of his old flag-ship that was slowly drifting up into the now intermingled fleets.
THE SECOND POSITION IN THE BATTLE
Once more he lowered his broad pennant and rowed out for the crippled Lawrence. He was received on board with three feeble cheers, the wounded joining in, and a number of men crawling up from the slaughter-pen of a cockpit, begrimed and bloody.
On board the Lawrence there had been left but one surgeon, Usher Parsons. He came on deck red to the elbows from his work below, and the terrible execution done by the concentrated English fire was evident to the English officers as they stepped on board the flag-ship. Dead men lay everywhere. A whole gun’s crew were littered about alongside of their wrecked piece. From below came the mournful howling of a dog. The cockpit had been above the water’s surface, owing to the Lawrence’s shallow draught, and here was a frightful sight. The wounded had been killed outright or wounded again as they lay on the surgeon’s table. Twice had Perry called away the surgeon’s aids to help work ship, and once his hail of “Can any wounded men below there pull a rope?” was answered by three or four brave, mangled fellows crawling up on deck to try to do their duty. All this was apparent to the English officers as they stepped over the bodies of the dead and went aft to where Perry stood with his arms folded, no vainglorious expression on his face, but one of sadness for the deeds that had been done that day. Each of the English officers in turn presented his sword, and in reply Perry bowed and requested that the side-arms should be retained. As soon as the formalities had been gone through with, Perry tore off the back of an old letter he took from his pocket, and, using his stiff hat for a writing-desk, scribbled the historic message which a detractor has charged he cribbed from Julius Caesar: “We have met the enemy and they are ours:—two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop.”
Calling away a small boat, he sent Midshipman Forrest with the report to Gen. William Henry Harrison.
A computation has been made by one historian of the number of guns directed against the Lawrence in the early part of the action. The English had heavier armaments and more long guns; they could fight at a distance where the chubby carronade was useless. The Lawrence had but seven guns whose shots could reach her opponents, while the British poured into her the concentrated fire of thirty-two. This accounts for the frightful carnage.
POSITIONS AT THE CLOSE OF THE BATTLE
When the Lawrence was being shot through and through, and there were but three guns that could reply to the enemy’s fire, Lieutenant Yarnell, disfigured by a bad wound across his face from a splinter, came up to where Perry was standing. “The officers of my division have all been cut down,” he said. “Can I have others?” Perry looked about him and sent three of his aid to help Yarnell, but in less than a quarter of an hour the lieutenant returned again. His words were almost the same as before, but he had a fresh wound in his shoulder. “Those officers,” he said, “have been cut down also.”