Dear General: We have met the enemy and they are ours. Two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop.
This telegram might not resonate with most readers, but among enthusiasts of Anglo-American naval history, it holds a certain fame. On September 10, 1813, Admiral Oliver Hazard Perry sent this message to his superior, U.S. General William Henry Harrison, informing him of the naval victory his squadron achieved against British forces led by Commodore Robert Heriot Barclay in what is now known as the Battle of Lake Erie. The United States’ triumph secured control of the lake, preventing an enemy attack from the north within the context of the war between the two nations.
Known as the Anglo-American War of 1812, this conflict overlapped with the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and began as an American attempt to invade what is now Canada, then part of the British Empire, in response to British trade restrictions with European nations, the seizure of neutral American merchant ships and cargo, and the forced recruitment of American sailors into the Royal Navy. Additionally, Britain supported Native American resistance against the expansion of the newly born American republic.
The United States was aware of its naval inferiority compared to Britain, so it focused its operations on land. This strategy targeted British North America (Canada), which was a natural area of expansion after prior territorial gains in Spanish Florida to the south.
Although British forces in the region were limited, as most of their troops were engaged in fighting Napoleon, they managed to maintain a defensive strategy. American invasion attempts repeatedly failed due to an insufficient army composed largely of inexperienced state militias unwilling to fight outside their borders.
During this phase of the war, some Native American tribes played a key role. Aligned with the British, they spearheaded efforts to repel U.S. troops. This was the Tecumseh Confederation, led by its namesake chief, which brought together the Shawnee, Delaware, Mohawk, Lenape, Miami, Pottawatomie, Wea, Kickapoo, Piankeshaw, Sauk, Ojibwa, Chippewa, and other tribes, amassing thousands of warriors. With momentum on their side, the British shifted to an offensive strategy, capturing Detroit in the summer of 1812 and thwarting another U.S. attack via Niagara.
Things began to change in the spring of 1813 when the combined British and Native forces not only failed to capture two forts but also suffered heavy casualties that forced them to retreat to Canada. General Harrison saw another opportunity to enter enemy territory, but this required control of the Great Lakes, which were vital for supplies. Neither side had enough ships to gain the upper hand.
His Majesty’s Provincial Marine had two ships, the Royal George and the Earl of Moira, along with two schooners on Lake Ontario, a corvette (Queen Charlotte), a brig (General Hunter), and the schooner Lady Prevost on Lake Erie. The U.S. Navy, on the other hand, had only the brigs Oneida and Adams. The latter was captured when Detroit fell, prompting the Americans to undertake a daring mission to restore parity. At Fort Erie, they recaptured the Caledonia, which had been seized earlier, forcing the British to run aground and burn the Adams, which they had renamed Detroit.
Thus, the United States incorporated the Caledonia into its fleet and expanded it by purchasing the schooners Sommers and Ohio and the sloop Trippe, modifying them to serve as gunboats. In fact, Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton pushed for the construction of four additional vessels and appointed Commodore Isaac Chauncey to command operations on the Great Lakes. By 1813, Hamilton’s successor, William Jones, ordered the construction of two corvettes. The renewed U.S. fleet was finally ready to fight and retake Fort Erie. It was on the lake of the same name that the battle central to this article would take place.
In June, Commander Robert Heriot Barclay, a Scotsman who had been at sea since the age of eleven and fought under Nelson at Trafalgar aboard the HMS Swiftsure, arrived to take command of the squadron. Barclay had lost his left arm in another battle and found himself with a poorly regarded crew from the Provincial Marine. To make matters worse, carronades sent to bolster his fleet’s artillery were captured by the enemy during the Battle of York, forcing him to scavenge for weapons at local forts.
Even so, with reinforcements in the form of the schooner Chippeway and the sloop Little Belt, Barclay set sail in search of an engagement. Meanwhile, the Americans placed the young Oliver Hazard Perry (28 years old) in command of their fleet. Perry, the older brother of the famous Matthew Perry (who would force Japan to open its ports to foreign trade three decades later), had been a sailor since childhood, served as a midshipman, and participated in the Quasi-War with France and the Tripolitan War against the Barbary pirates, though he had not personally seen combat. His only combat experience came from a failed attempt to rescue a ship held by the Spanish in Florida.
At the start of hostilities on Lake Erie, Perry found himself blockaded by Barclay at Presque Isle, although he was safe thanks to a sandbar that prevented the British from attacking. Bad weather and a lack of supplies forced the commodore to retreat, allowing the American to set sail. He first had to lighten the ships to cross the sandbar, but eventually succeeded, and when the enemy returned, they found an opposing line that prevented them from approaching the two brigs, the only ones that hadn’t had time to leave.
Barclay chose to withdraw again, waiting for the construction of the corvette HMS Detroit to be completed. The American squadron anchored at Put-in-Bay, Ohio, while Barclay, who was starting to run out of supplies, had no choice but to set out again and seek battle with Perry.
Perry, aware that circumstances were forcing him to fight, asked his purser, Samuel Humbleton, for a flag that, when hoisted, would signal his fleet to attack. Humbleton suggested one inscribed with the last words spoken by James Lawrence, captain of the frigate USS Chesapeake, before dying in battle against the British frigate Shannon the previous June: “Don’t Give Up the Ship!”, a classic phrase in U.S. naval history. The women along the lakeshore embroidered it on a blue background, and it was indeed hoisted on September 10, when a lookout alerted that the enemy squadron was sailing toward them.
Both sides met face-to-face off the coast of Put-in-Bay. Barclay’s fleet included the corvette Queen Charlotte (eighteen guns), the schooners Lady Prevost and Chippeway (the former with twelve guns, the latter with two, as it was a converted merchant ship), the brig General Hunter (six guns), and the sloop Little Belt (another armed merchant ship with three guns). Perry commanded nine vessels, outnumbering his opponent in ships, crew, and artillery quality: the brigs Caledonia, Lawrence, and Niagara, each armed with about twenty guns; the schooners Scorpion, Somers, Ariel, Porcupine, and Tigress; and the sloop Trippe.
The first engagement was between the Lawrence and the Detroit, which had finally been completed; the former’s slow pace, combined with poor use of its carronades, gave the latter an advantage, while the Niagara also failed to reach adequate speed and lagged behind, partly obstructed by the clumsiness of the Caledonia and partly because it was targeting the Queen Charlotte. Eventually, it found its target, and they engaged in a duel that did not escalate, as the officer who took command of the British corvette after the deaths of his superiors realized that his guns lacked the necessary range and decided to join the General Hunter in supporting the Detroit against the Lawrence.
Devastated by volleys, the Lawrence ended up in ruins, with most of its crew killed; to make matters worse, the wounded had to be treated by the surgeon’s assistant, as the surgeon himself had fallen ill with malaria. Perry survived and transferred to the Niagara in a small boat, carrying the coveted embroidered flag with him. It was an agonizing kilometer-long row under intense British musket fire, with accounts varying on whether he stood defiantly or was protected by his Black servant, Cyrus Tiffany, whom he had ordered to stay on deck with a musket to discourage anyone from shirking during the fight.
Meanwhile, the Lawrence proved unfaithful to its slogan and surrendered, creating a momentary lull in the fighting. The action then resumed, with American gunboats firing from a distance alongside the Caledonia. By then, two hours of combat had passed, and while it initially seemed advantageous for the British, they had suffered severe losses among their officers—Barclay himself was seriously wounded—resulting in less skillful maneuvering. This became evident when the Niagara managed to break their line, firing broadsides on both sides, followed by the smaller vessels, sowing chaos.
The British were taken by surprise when, expecting the Americans to retreat after the loss of the Lawrence, they saw the Niagara set a course directly toward them, cutting across their path and supported by its schooners. The Detroit and the Queen Charlotte collided in the confusion, their rigging entangled; with great effort, the sailors managed to untangle the mass of ropes and spars, but the ships were practically unmanageable and had to surrender. The surrender did not take place aboard the Niagara, as might have been expected; Perry insisted that it occur on the Lawrence.
The smaller ships, whose captains had been killed, attempted to flee but were overtaken. It is said that upon boarding the British flagship, the victors found three native men hiding in the hold. Apparently, they had climbed to the fighting tops at the start of the battle, eager to earn recognition by taking down enemy officers with their muskets. However, as masts, spars, and sails exploded around them from cannon fire, they panicked and quickly climbed down to seek cover. Reports also mention a tamed bear, perhaps a soldiers’ pet, busily licking the blood that covered the deck.
Barclay lost a leg at the thigh and fainted from blood loss; he was also injured in his remaining arm, which was permanently disabled. He later appeared, wrapped in bandages, before a court-martial, which absolved him of any fault and praised his courage, though he did not receive command of another ship until 1822 (a bomb vessel); he died in 1837. As for Perry, he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and promoted to captain. He would later lead a punitive mission to Venezuela in 1819 but died that same year of yellow fever. Both held differing accounts of the collision, a debate eagerly fueled by the press.
In the Battle of Lake Erie, the British suffered forty-one dead and ninety-four wounded; six hundred were taken prisoner—a number greater than the surviving Americans, who recorded twenty-seven dead and ninety-six wounded (two of whom later died). The most damaged ships—the Lawrence, the Detroit, and the Queen Charlotte—were so battered that they were converted into floating hospitals; the first was restored for service in 1814 and displayed at the Centennial Exposition of 1876 (though it was reduced to ashes when the pavilion housing it burned down), but the others became useless after a gale worsened their condition, completely dismasting them, leaving only their hulls.
Like the Lawrence, the Niagara was initially deliberately sunk in Presque Isle for later recovery. However, unlike the Lawrence, the Niagara would wait a century: it was not until 1913 that it was refloated and restored to commemorate another centennial, that of the battle. It then fell into neglect, deteriorating progressively until 1988, when it underwent a new rehabilitation—more accurately, a reconstruction—and today it sails as a training ship for the Coast Guard, often displayed at the rear dock of the Erie Maritime Museum and serving as Pennsylvania’s floating ambassador.
The victory allowed the Americans to transport thousands of soldiers to capture Amherstburg, which fell on September 27, the same day that Richard Mentor Johnson’s troops—Johnson would later become vice president of the United States—seized Detroit. The British began a general retreat from the area but were overtaken and defeated by Harrison on October 5 in the Battle of the Thames, where Tecumseh was killed.
In other words, Lake Erie and the Niagara Peninsula came under the control of the victors, eliminating the possibility of an enemy invasion from that point and ensuring the safety of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Two more years of war remained. By 1815, after Napoleon’s final defeat, the British had full availability of their troops, forcing an agreement: the Treaty of Ghent (1815), which restored the pre-war status quo.
This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on January 22, 2025: La batalla del lago Erie, el enfrentamiento naval entre estadounidenses y británicos que evitó una invasión desde Canadá
SOURCES
Theodore Roosevelt, The history of naval war of 1812
Craig L. Simons, Decision at sea. Five naval battles that shaped American history
John R. Elting, Amateurs to arms: A military history of the War of 1812
David C. Skaggs, A signal victory: The Lake Erie Campaign, 1812–13
Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A forgotten conflict
Wikipedia, Batalla del Lago Erie
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