It is March 18th. Welcome to Episode 77 of History in a Year. Today, a 28-year-old naval commander refuses to give up the ship. Following the humiliating surrender of Detroit, the United States realizes it cannot win the war in the West without controlling the Great Lakes. We follow Oliver Hazard Perry as he miraculously builds a fleet from scratch in the Pennsylvania wilderness. We witness the brutal, bloody, close-quarters naval duel of the Battle of Lake Erie, Perry’s legendary rowboat transfer through a hail of cannon fire, and the immortal message that changed the tide of the War of 1812.
STEPHEN:
Welcome to History in a Year: America’s First 250 Years.
LEAH:
Join us every single day as we journey from the Revolution of 1776 to the 250th anniversary of the United States.
STEPHEN:
You can find every episode and join the discussion at PointedWords.com. I’m Stephen.
LEAH:
And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN:
It is March 18th. Welcome to Episode 77. Yesterday, we watched the American army suffer the ultimate humiliation. General William Hull surrendered the entire city of Detroit to the British without firing a single shot.
LEAH:
By the end of 1812, the British essentially controlled the entire Michigan Territory and the western frontier. And they did it because they controlled the water.
STEPHEN:
The Great Lakes were the massive, strategic highways of North America. If you controlled the lakes, you could move troops and supplies instantly. If you didn’t, you were stuck marching through hundreds of miles of impenetrable, muddy wilderness.
LEAH:
President James Madison realized that to take back Detroit and defeat Tecumseh’s Native American confederacy, the United States had to build a navy on fresh water.
STEPHEN:
And the man he picked to do it was a 28-year-old naval officer from Rhode Island named Oliver Hazard Perry.
LEAH:
Perry arrived in Erie, Pennsylvania, in the freezing winter of 1813. And his mission was borderline impossible. He was told to build an entire naval squadron from scratch, completely cut off from the massive shipyards of the East Coast.
STEPHEN:
He had to chop down the trees in the surrounding forests, forge the iron nails on site, and drag heavy cannons hundreds of miles through the snow from Pittsburgh.
LEAH:
But Perry was a force of nature. By the summer of 1813, he had actually done it. He had built a small fleet, anchored by two massive, 20-gun brigs: the USS Niagara and his flagship, the USS Lawrence.
STEPHEN:
Perry named his flagship after his close friend, Captain James Lawrence, who had recently been killed in a naval battle. As Lawrence was dying on the deck of his ship, his famous last words were, “Don’t give up the ship.”
LEAH:
Perry actually had those words stitched into a massive blue battle flag.
STEPHEN:
On the morning of September 10, 1813, Perry got his chance to fly it. The British squadron, commanded by Robert Heriot Barclay, sailed out to challenge the Americans on Lake Erie.
LEAH:
The wind was initially against the Americans. As Perry sailed the Lawrence toward the British line, the British long guns started pounding his ship from a distance.
STEPHEN:
For two agonizing hours, the Lawrence absorbed the absolute brunt of the British firepower. The other American flagship, the Niagara, was supposed to support them, but for reasons that are still debated today, its captain held back and stayed out of range.
LEAH:
The Lawrence was reduced to a floating slaughterhouse. The sails were shredded, the cannons were dismounted, and the decks were slippery with blood. Every single officer on the ship except for Perry was dead or severely wounded.
STEPHEN:
With his ship completely destroyed and sinking beneath him, it looked like Oliver Hazard Perry was going to have to surrender.
LEAH:
But Perry looked over and saw the Niagara just sitting out of range, perfectly intact.
STEPHEN:
He made a decision that instantly became naval legend. He hauled down his blue “Don’t Give Up The Ship” battle flag, grabbed a few uninjured sailors, and jumped into a tiny wooden rowboat.
LEAH:
Perry ordered his men to row him through a half-mile of open water directly toward the Niagara.
STEPHEN:
The British could not believe what they were seeing. A commanding officer was abandoning his sinking flagship in the middle of a battle. They immediately aimed all their muskets and cannons right at the tiny rowboat.
LEAH:
The water around the boat was literally boiling with musket balls and grapeshot. The oars were splintered, and the sailors had to beg Perry to sit down so he wouldn’t be shot.
STEPHEN:
Miraculously, Perry made it to the Niagara without a scratch. He climbed aboard, took command of the pristine warship, and immediately hoisted his blue battle flag.
LEAH:
Then, he ordered the Niagara to sail directly into the center of the British line.
STEPHEN:
The British ships had been severely damaged fighting the Lawrence, and they had actually become tangled up with each other trying to maneuver.
LEAH:
Perry sailed right between them and unleashed devastating, point-blank, double-shotted broadsides from both sides of his ship simultaneously.
STEPHEN:
The fresh American firepower absolutely shattered the British squadron. Within 15 minutes of Perry breaking the line, every single British ship struck its colors.
LEAH:
It was the very first time in history that an entire British naval squadron had been forced to surrender.
STEPHEN:
Oliver Hazard Perry sat down on the blood-soaked deck, grabbed an old envelope, and scribbled a hasty message to General William Henry Harrison, who was waiting with the army on the shore.
LEAH:
He wrote: “We have met the enemy and they are ours. Two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop.”
STEPHEN:
That victory completely flipped the War of 1812. The United States now controlled Lake Erie. The British supply lines to Detroit were severed.
LEAH:
The British Army and their Native American allies had no choice. They had to abandon Detroit and retreat back into Canada.
STEPHEN:
And William Henry Harrison’s army was waiting to chase them down.
LEAH:
Join us tomorrow for Episode 78. The Fall of Tecumseh. The great Shawnee leader realizes the British are abandoning him. We follow the desperate Native American retreat into Canada, the climactic Battle of the Thames, and the tragic death of the visionary warrior who almost stopped the expansion of the United States.
STEPHEN:
I’m Stephen.
LEAH:
And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN:
You can find every episode at PointedWords.com. And this… is our story.