Battle of Lake Erie
The Battle of Lake Erie was fought on September 10, 1813, between nine small ships of the United States Navy and six vessels of Great Britain. The decisive victory of the Americans over the British fleet ensured American control of the Great Lakes and the North-Western Territory during the War of 1812, opened supply lines, and improved American morale, leading to another British defeat in the Battle of the Thames a month later.
Background
The British had been blockading the port of Erie, Pennsylvania during the summer of 1813, but on August 1 they unexpectedly withdrew. The American ships in the harbor were finally able to leave, and throughout August, Oliver Perry prepared for the inevitable battle while keeping a close eye on the British ships at Detroit.
The Battle
On September 10, British Commodore Robert Heriot Barclay, in his flagship the HMS Detroit, met Captain Oliver Perry near Put-in-Bay, Ohio. Barclay's six ships outweighed and outgunned Perry's nine, including Perry's flagship the USS Lawrence; the Lawrence faced an unfavourable wind and was destroyed in the course of the battle with four-fifths of its crew killed or wounded. However, Perry was able to row a half-mile through heavy gunfire and transfer command to the USS Niagara, a ship equal in size and strength to the Lawrence, but which had not yet been engaged in the battle. As the HMS Detroit had suffered some damage, the Niagara was able to capture it, along with the other five British ships.
Each side suffered about 100 casualties. The vessels were anchored and hasty repairs were underway near West Sister Island when Perry composed his now famous message to William Henry Harrison. Scrawled in pencil on the back of an old envelope, Perry wrote:
- Dear General:
- We have met the enemy and they are ours. Two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop.
- Yours with great respect and esteem,
- O.H. Perry
Due to the outcome of the battle, Britain retreated from Detroit and lost control of Lake Erie for the remainder of the war.
After the war, the U.S. Navy intentionally sank both vessels in Lake Erie; the battle damage they had suffered was too extensive to repair. In 1875 the Lawrence was raised and moved to Philadelphia, where it was displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exposition. Later that year the ship burned when the pavilion that housed it caught fire. Although the Niagara was raised and restored in 1913, it subsequently fell into disrepair. It was eventually disassembled and portions of it were used in a reconstructed Niagara, which is now on view in Erie, Pennsylvania.
