What Captain Perry now did was fine. He hoisted a great blue flag, and when it unrolled in the wind the men saw on it, in white letters, the dying words of Captain Lawrence, "Don't give up the ship!" Was not that a grand signal to give? It must have put great spirit into the men, and made them feel that they would die like the gallant Lawrence before they would give up their ships. The men on both fleets were eager to fight, but the wind kept very light, and they came together slowly. It was near noon before they got near enough for their long guns to work. Then the British began to send balls skipping over the water, and soon after the Americans answered back.
Now came the roar of battle, the flash of guns, the cloud of smoke that settled down and half hid everything. The Americans came on in a long line, head on for the British, who awaited their approach. Perry's flagship, the Lawrence, was near the head of the line. It soon plunged into the very thick of the fight, with only two little schooners to help it. The wind may have been too light for the rest of the fleet to come up. We do not know just what kept them back, but at any rate, they didn't come up, and the Lawrence was left to fight alone.
Never had a vessel been in a worse plight than was the Lawrence for the next two hours. She was half surrounded by the three large British vessels, the Detroit, the Queen Charlotte, and the brig Hunter, all pouring in their fire at once, while she had to fight them all. On the Lawrence and the two schooners there were only seven long guns against thirty-six which were pelting Perry's flagship from the British fleet.
This was great odds. But overhead there floated the words, "Don't give up the ship"; so the brave Perry pushed on till he was close to the Detroit, and worked away, for life or death, with all his guns, long and short.
Oh, what a dreadful time there was on Perry's flagship during those sad two hours. The great guns roared, the thick smoke rose, the balls tore through her sides, sending splinters flying like sharp arrows to right and left. Men fell like leaves blown down by a gale. Blood splashed on the living and flowed over the dead. The surgeon's mates were kept busy carrying the wounded below, where the surgeon dressed their wounds.
Captain Perry's little brother, a boy of only thirteen years, was on the ship, and stood beside him as brave as himself. Two bullets went through the boy's hat; then a splinter cut through his clothes; still he did not flinch. Soon after, he was knocked down and the captain grew pale with fear. But up jumped the boy again. It was only a flying hammock that had struck him. That little fellow was a true sailor boy, and had in him plenty of Yankee grit.
I would not, if I could, tell you all the horrors of those two hours. It is not pleasant reading. The cannon balls even came through the vessel's sides among the wounded, and killed some of them where they lay. At the end of the fight the Lawrence was a mere wreck. Her bowsprit and masts were nearly all cut away, and out of more than a hundred men only fourteen were unhurt. There was not a gun left that could be worked.
Most men in such a case would have pulled down their flag. But Oliver Perry had the spirit of Paul Jones, and he did not forget the words on his flag—"Don't give up the ship."
During those dread two hours the Niagara, under Lieutenant Elliott, had kept out of the fight. Now it came sailing up before a freshening breeze.
As soon as Perry saw this fresh ship he made up his mind what to do. He had a boat lowered with four men in it. His little brother leaped in after them. Then he stepped aboard with the flag bearing Lawrence's motto on his shoulder, and was rowed away to the Niagara. As soon as the British saw this little boat on the water, with Perry standing upright, wrapped in the flag he had fought for so bravely, they turned all their guns and fired at it. Cannon and musket balls tore the water round it. It looked as if nothing would save those devoted men from death.