Decision at Sea

by Symonds, Craig L.

  Just as Perry was beginning to breathe a bit easier, lookouts on the Lawrence called down that the British fleet was approaching. Five vessels, led by the Queen Charlotte, were standing toward them “with every sail set.” The timing could hardly have been worse. The two American brigs were at last in deep water, but they were completely unprepared for battle. The Lawrence had most of its guns remounted on their carriages, but the Niagara’s guns still lay useless on the beach. It was an extraordinary moment. All that Perry and others had worked so long and so hard to accomplish might be undone in a moment simply due to bad luck. Still, it would be several hours before the enemy ships were within range, and Perry was determined to play the game out. He called upon the men to perform what one called “the most uncommon and extraordinary exertions” to return the guns to the Niagara and prepare it for action. The boats plied back and forth from the beach as men who had been up all night for two consecutive nights worked on pure adrenaline to restore the last of the guns, raise the topgallant mast and spars, and reset the rigging. Even if they succeeded, Perry knew that he did not have enough men on board to handle the guns in a fight. He appealed to the militiamen for help, and those who volunteered were rowed out to the brigs. One of Perry’s officers, watching them take up positions on the deck of the Lawrence, suspected that until that moment, two-thirds of them “had probably never seen water except in their own wells.” Still, there was nothing to do but bluff it out.49

  The bluff worked. Seeing the American fleet apparently over the bar and ready for a fight, the British did not press the issue. After exchanging a few long-range shots with the gunboats, they turned and sailed back up the lake. Having narrowly avoided disaster, Perry changed at once from prey to predator. Once the Niagara was fully restored to readiness, he resolved to pursue the English squadron and defeat it before it could be augmented. That night he wrote to Jones to explain his decision. “I have great pleasure in informing you,” he wrote in his bold, flowing script, “that I have succeeded after almost incredible labor and fatigue to the men, in getting all the vessels I have been able to man over the bar. . . . They are neither well officered or manned, but as the emergency of Genl Harrison, and the whole western country is such, I have determined to proceed on Service. My government, should I be unsuccessful, I trust will justly appreciate the motives which have governed me in this determination.”50

  The next morning he directed his ships toward Long Point, directly across the lake, where he suspected the British had gone. But after looking into the harbor there and seeing no enemy vessels, he concluded that they had returned to the safety of Fort Malden, near Amherstburg. Unwilling to try his untested crews with such a challenge, he returned to the anchorage off Erie. At dinner that evening, which he ate on board the Lawrence with his purser, Samuel Hambleton, Perry confessed that he was not sure what to do next. He knew the country was watching and waiting for news and that much was expected of him. He knew, too, that Harrison was waiting for support. But he feared that his undermanned and inexperienced crews would not be able to stand up to a pitched battle with the British. In Hambleton’s words, he felt “the danger of delay [but] he is not insensible to the hazard of encountering an enemy without due preparation.” Then, even as Perry talked, a midshipman entered the cabin to deliver a letter from Lieutenant Jesse Elliott, the hero of the Black Rock affair and the former commander on Lake Erie. The letter announced Elliott’s imminent arrival at the head of almost a hundred sailors from Lake Ontario. Chauncey had finally caved in to Perry’s repeated pleas for manpower. Hambleton reported to his diary that Perry was “electrified by the news . . ., declared that he had not been so happy since his first arrival; that now he had a commander, just such a one as he wanted, for the Niagara, he was at ease and would sail as soon as they arrived.”51

  The fleet sailed on August 12. It was a harrowing experience for the militiamen, most of whom became deathly seasick at once and remained in that condition for the whole of the cruise. The first stop was the entrance to Sandusky Bay near the campsite of General William Henry Harrison’s American army. On August 19 Harrison himself came on board the Lawrence, bringing with him a dozen officers and a handful of friendly Indians. The Indians were fascinated by Perry’s “big canoes,” and especially by the heavy iron cannon, which fired a salute to Harrison. They were also impressed by the ship’s spyglass, which brought the shore so much closer just by looking through it. Perry and Harrison had a valuable interview, the best part of which, from Perry’s viewpoint, was Harrison’s offer to send him another hundred volunteer soldiers to use as marines on board the ships of the squadron.52

  With his ships now fully manned, Perry gave orders for the squadron to make sail for the British base at Amherstburg at the mouth of the Detroit River, where it would seek battle with the British for the command of Lake Erie.

  One hundred thirty miles due west of Erie, at the northwest corner of the lake, Fort Malden guarded the entrance to the Detroit River. That fort, and the nearby town of Amherstburg, had been the object of William Hull’s disastrous campaign exactly one year before. Now it was the base of Robert Barclay’s small British squadron on Lake Erie. At twenty-seven (a year younger than Perry), Barclay bore the temporary rank of commander. But despite his age, Barclay had plenty of battle experience behind him. He had fought at Trafalgar as a teenage midshipman, and like his idol, Lord Nelson, he had lost his left arm in combat. In preparing his squadron for the confrontation with the Americans, Barclay had experienced virtually all of the same logistical and manpower problems that had plagued Perry. If anything, Barclay’s difficulties had been greater. To begin with, Amherstburg was even more geographically isolated than Erie, and the roads, trails really, along the north shore of the lake were virtually impassable, meaning that all communication with the rest of Canada depended on use of the lake. In addition, Barclay’s superiors provided him with even less support than Perry got from Jones or Chauncey. A pair of modern scholars comment astutely that Barclay began his operations on Lake Erie “not only without a left arm . . . but also with his right one figuratively tied behind his back.” Still, Barclay was determined and energetic, and he vowed to do what he could.53

  His command consisted of the seventeen-gun ship-rigged Queen Charlotte, the brig General Hunter (ten guns), and the schooner Lady Prevost (thirteen guns), plus a handful of smaller (and mostly unarmed) schooners and sloops. While this squadron was sufficient to command the lake in June, when Barclay arrived, he knew it would not be able to stand up to the two big American brigs once they were completed. His great hope was the Detroit. Named for the vessel captured by Elliott off Black Rock and destroyed in the ensuing fight, this was a one-hundred-foot-long, twenty-gun vessel currently under construction at the Amherstburg shipyard. Designed as a ship (with three masts), as opposed to Perry’s brigs (which had two), it was otherwise a virtual match for either the Lawrence or the Niagara. Technically, at 490 tons, it would be the largest warship on the lake, since Perry’s brigs displaced 480 tons each. Barclay felt that with the Detroit and the Queen Charlotte, he would have a good chance to match up with Perry’s twin brigs.54

  But although the British had begun work on the Detroit in December 1812, before the Americans got serious about their two brigs, progress was slow. In part this was because unlike Noah Brown, who encouraged “plain work” on the Lawrence and Niagara, the British contractor, William Bell, took perhaps too much pride in his careful craftsmanship. But in addition to that, the work lagged because the British in Amherstburg were even more destitute of supplies and matériel than the Americans at Erie. Manpower, too, was a bottleneck problem. If Perry was frustrated with Chauncey for sending him only about 260 sailors, Barclay got none at all from his theater commander, Sir James Yeo. Like Perry, Barclay recruited what men he could from the army, obtaining infantrymen from the British 41st Regiment and militiamen from the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. But he was less than enthusiastic about them. Unconsciously echoing Perry’s complaint to
Chauncey about “blacks, Soldiers and boys,” Barclay wrote Yeo: “I am sure, Sir James, if you saw my Canadians, you would condemn every one (with perhaps two or three exceptions) as a poor devil not worth his Salt.”55 Except for the nineteen sailors he brought with him, Barclay had no experienced navy men at all. And finally, he lacked both powder and shot, as well as cordage, sails, anchors, or even matches to fire the guns. Once at sea, the crews on some of his ships had to fire their cannon by shooting at the touchholes with pistols because the slowmatch was unusable.

  Barclay appealed for help, writing the governor general, Sir George Prevost, that “if prompt assistance is not sent up . . . the great superiority of the enemy may prove fatal.” There was still hope, he insisted. “The Detroit will [soon] be ready to launch . . ., but there is neither a sufficient quantity of ordnance, Ammunition or any other stores—and not a man to put in her.” Prevost replied that he would encourage Yeo to send whatever men he could, but he did not hold out much hope. “You must be sensible of the impossibility in the present state of the Country . . . of supplying you with all the articles of which you stand in need.” And he ended with an astonishing instruction: “you must endeavor to obtain your Ordnance and Naval Stores from the Enemy.” In other words, Prevost expected Barclay to capture whatever supplies he needed from the Americans. In the end, Barclay managed to cobble together a mixed battery of nineteen guns for the Detroit, including eight nine-pounders, six twelve-pounders, two eighteen-pounders, and three twenty-four-pounders. It had no thirty-two-pounders at all, guns that constituted the main battery on both the Lawrence and the Niagara.56

  Barclay’s best hope was to keep the American squadron pinned up inside Presque Isle Bay until the Detroit was finished. During his reconnaissance in late July in the Queen Charlotte, he saw that the two American brigs were nearly complete, and he returned in the first week of August with his whole squadron to establish a blockade. But when he arrived on August 4, the Americans were already over the bar and into the open lake—or so it appeared to him. Unaware that Perry’s ships were woefully unready for a fight, Barclay decided that there was no reason to provoke a fight with the Detroit so near completion, so he turned his squadron around and headed back to Fort Malden.

  Barclay was now in a quandary, with few good options available to him. The presence of a superior American squadron on the lake meant that the British could no longer use the lake to bring supplies or reinforcements to Amherstburg. By September supplies in the fort and navy yard were already dwindling. Barclay had his own crews on half rations, and the circumstances were exacerbated by the presence of large numbers of Indian “allies” who encamped about the town and expected to be fed. If those expectations were not met, the Indians might easily change sides. Barclay’s only chance was to regain naval superiority on the lake, which would allow the British once again to move supplies across its surface. As he expressed it later, he felt “obliged . . . to fight the Enemy . . . to enable us to get supplies and Provisions.” As soon as the Detroit was completed, assuming that he could find enough men to put in her, he would have to offer battle.57

  When Perry set out for Fort Malden in late August, his goal was to establish a blockade of Amherstburg. Only a few days out, however, sickness broke out on board most of the ships in the American squadron. The surgeon’s mate on the Lawrence, Usher Parsons, called it “Bilious Remittent Fever” and attributed it to drinking the unhealthy water of Lake Erie, but whatever it was, it ran quickly through the squadron and struck Perry himself, who, for all his eagerness, had to confine himself to his cot. He gave orders for the squadron to find a safe anchorage at Put-in-Bay, a well-known harbor near Bass Island, not quite halfway between Fort Malden and Long Point. He knew that as long as his squadron occupied Put-in-Bay, the British could not use the lake route for their supplies. Eventually, Barclay would have to come out to drive the Americans away.

  On September 10 he did.

  The early phases of a fleet engagement in the Age of Sail proceeded in a well-established pattern and with a certain pageantry. Upon sighting and identifying the foe, the opposing commanders first ordered their ships cleared for action. The order was signaled by a drummer who beat the long roll: a bass-voiced trilling that sent a shiver up the spine of every sailor who ever heard it. This produced a profound reaction throughout the ship as the hands scrambled to take their preassigned stations. The gunners gathered around their giant iron weapons, casting them loose from their bindings. The marines went aloft, their rifles slung over their shoulders as they carefully ascended the ratlines; once positioned in the “fighting top,” they would use their shoulder arms to pick off officers or other targets of opportunity on the enemy’s deck. Other marines, including all the volunteer soldiers, took up positions on the more stable main deck. The most inexperienced men (and both squadrons had plenty of these) were assigned to carry the powder and shot to the guns from the magazine below or to assist in heaving the great guns into position, for although there were pulleys and ropes (known as block and tackle) to assist, any movement of the guns was done mainly by brute force.

  The officers took their stations, too. The midshipmen and the lieutenants each commanded a section of guns, and it was their duty to ensure that all the men were in their places, that they had all the equipment necessary, including lit matches, and that once the fighting started, they stayed focused on their tasks. The ship’s captain took a position on the quarterdeck near the helmsman, who was usually the quartermaster when at battle stations. Perry’s thirteen-year-old brother, Midshipman Alex Perry, also stayed on the quarterdeck, since Perry planned to use him as a kind of aide to relay messages and orders. While the drums rolled and men rushed to their positions, there was a hurricane of action aboard the ship. Then when everyone was in place, the officer of the deck, often the captain himself, would shout, “Silence about the deck!” and the whole ship would suddenly become still. Only the creaking of the masts interrupted the artificial silence.

  Everything was now ready, and there was nothing more to do but wait for the enemy to come within range. In the relatively light airs on Lake Erie, Perry’s squadron approached the British at an almost glacial pace, about three knots. During sea battles in the Age of Sail, there were moments of frantic activity often followed by long periods when there was nothing to do but wait, watch the slow approach of the enemy, and contemplate one’s own mortality. Aboard the Lawrence, a sailor named David Bunnell recalled that “we neared the enemy very slowly, which gave us a little time for reflection.” The men “stood in awful impatience—not a word was spoken—not a sound heard, except now and then an order to trim a sail, and the boatswain’s shrill whistle.” To Bunnell, “it seemed like the awful silence that precedes an earthquake.” Another thought it was like “the stillness of the atmosphere that precedes the hurricane.”58

  To break that silence (and the tension), Perry stepped onto the top of a gun slide so that he could be seen. Holding up the flag he had prepared, he called out: “My brave Lads, this Flag contains the last words of the brave Capt. Lawrence. Shall I hoist it?” It drew the desired response, and amidst the cheering, Perry had it run up to the masthead. Then to make sure that the men didn’t have to fight on an empty stomach, he ordered that the noontime bread and grog ration be distributed early. While the men ate and drank, he went round the ship to check on each gun and gun crew to see that everything was in order and to spread confidence. At each gun he exchanged a few words with the gun captain, generally a senior enlisted man. “Well, boys,” he would remark, “are you ready?” And they would reply cheerfully: “All ready, your honor!” Finding one gun manned by veterans who had come with him all the way from gunboat service in Narragansett Bay, he exclaimed, “Ah! Here are the Newport boys! They will do their duty, I warrant.”59

  More privately, Perry consulted with his purser, Samuel Hambleton, asking him to take charge of his personal papers in the event of his death. The ship’s official papers Perry placed in a canvas sack,
adding a lead bar as a weight so that the package could be tossed overboard in the event of disaster. Perry also found a job for his African American servant, Cyrus Tiffany. Handing him a musket and a bayonet, he told “Old Tiffany” to go down to the berth deck and guard the passageway so that once the shooting started, skulkers could not find safe haven below the waterline.60

  Both squadrons were sailing in the traditional line-ahead formation. In the American squadron, the small schooners Scorpion and Ariel led, followed by the Lawrence and Caledonia, with the Niagara and four more small vessels bringing up the rear. Perry passed orders by trumpet and followed them with a signal flag that read: “Engage as you come up, every one against his Opponent in the line.”61 As Perry envisioned it, he would take on the British flagship, the brand-new Detroit, with his own vessel, leaving the Queen Charlotte to Elliott in the Niagara. Whatever happened in the fight between the smaller vessels, Perry knew that it was the duel between the two big ships on each side that would decide the outcome.

  At fifteen minutes before noon, with the opposing squadrons about a mile apart, Barclay opened the action by firing a shot from one of the long twenty-four-pounders on the Detroit. The shot fell short, and Perry did not bother to reply. Most of his guns were stubby thirty-two-pounder carronades that fired a huge iron ball but had a relatively short range. He believed it was crucial to get as close as possible as quickly as he could. Carrying mainsail, topsail, and topgallant sails, Perry sailed boldly toward the enemy line, signaling to the other vessels to do the same. For a quarter of an hour, as the American fleet closed on the British line, the men on the Lawrence simply had to take the fire of the British long guns without any real opportunity to reply except with their single twelve-pound long gun.62