Battle of Lake Erie, with notices of Commodore Elliot's conduct in that engagement

Contents

Preface, .....

Lecture, ....

American Official Account, .

Preface

In the winter of 1836, a course of lectures was read in the city of Providence, before the Historical Society of Rhode-Island. The early history of the State was a general theme, and, among other things, the maritime affairs of our little Commonwealth were deemed worthy of attention.

The writer of the following Lecture, collected the materials, arranged most of the lectures, and wrote several of them, for an entire course, on this part of our history. These were intended to have been read before the Society, after the general course was terminated ; but this was, for a sufficient reason,

VI PREFACE.

then omitted, and it is not now probable that it will ever be done. The lecture on the fleet and battle of Erie, was the only one of the course then read.

It will be remembered, that not long before that time, he, who, at the beginning of that battle, commanded the Niagara, had publicly set up a claim to the whole glory of its successful termination. This was, doubtless, one reason why the printing of the following lecture was then requested, both by the Society, and by individuals, who regarded the achievements of the distinguished commander of that fleet, as a heritage of glory, to be cherished, and preserved, by the whole nation. A copy was not then furnished, because it was believed that the gentleman, who had been appointed by the General Assembly of Rhode- Island, to write the biography of Commodore Perry, would soon finish, and publish that work. This would supersede all necessity for printing this lecture.

The delay of that publication, and another event of a public character, have induced the writer of the lecture, at the anxious request

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of the family and friends of Commodore Perry, to furnish a copy of it for the press.

In doing this, it has been thought appropriate to give the reasons which induced the writer to regard the fleet and battle of Erie, as a part of the maritime affairs of Rhode-Island.

At the commencement of the revolution, it is believed that the people of Rhode-Island were, in their maritime character, much in advance of any other of the Colonies. They had more nautical men fit to command, and more vessels fit for public service, than any other. The idea of a national fleet was first conceived in Rhode-Island. Of this, ample proof shall be furnished.

At the August session, holden at East- Greenwich, Anno Salvatoris Nostrorum, 1775, the General Assembly of Rhode-Island made the first movement ever made, on this side of the Atlantic, to build, and establish a national fleet. It will be found in their own words, at page 103-4 of their journal ; and as no other words can be so apposite to their meaning, they will be quoted here just as they stand on their record.

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"Whereas, notwithstanding" the humble and dutiful petition of Congress to the King, and other wise and pacific measures, taken for obtaining a happy reconciliation between Great Britain and the Colonies ; the Ministers, lost to every sentiment of justice, liberty, and humanity, continue to send troops and ships of war into America, which destroy our trade, plunder and burn our towns, and murder the good people of these Colonies :

It is, therefore, Voted and Resolved, that this Colony most ardently wish to see the former friendship, harmony, and intercourse, between Britain and these Colonics, restored, and a happy, and lasting connexion established between both countries upon terms of just and equal liberty ; and will concur with other colonies in all proper, and necessary measures for obtaining these desirable blessings ; and as every principle, divine and human, requires us to obey that great and fundamental law of nature, self-preservation, until peace shall be restored upon constitutional principles ; this colony will most heartily exert the whole power of Government, in

PREFACE. IX

conjunction with other colonies, for carrying* on this just and necessary war, and bringing" the same to a happy issue : and among other measures for obtaining this most desirable purpose, this Assembly is persuaded that the building and equipping an American fleet, as soon as possible, would greatly and essentially conduce to the preservation of the lives, liberty and property of the good people of these Colonies ; and, therefore, instruct their delegates to use their whole influence, at the ensuing Congress, for building, at the Continental expense, a fleet of sufficient force for the protection of these Colonies, and for employing them in such manner and places, as will most annoy our enemies, and contribute to the common defence of these Colonies : and they are also instructed to use all their influence for carrying on the war in the most vigorous manner until peace, liberty, and safety be restored and secured to these colonies upon an equitable and permanent basis."

That Congress to which Stephen Hopkins and Samuel Ward had been elected delegates,

assembled at Philadelphia, on Wednesday, the l*

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5th day of September, 1775. A quorum not attending on that day, they adjourned from day to day, until the 13th of that month. It is not known on what day the Rhode-Island delegates took their seats in that Congress ; but, as it appears by the journal, vol. 1, page 147, " Tuesday, October 3d, one of the delegates from Rhode-Island laid before Congress a part of the instructions given them by their two Houses of Legislature, on the 26th of August last." These are, verbatim, the words of the Congressional record.

These instructions are the first intimations, on the records of Congress, of any movement on the subject of a continental fleet. They were the germ of our United States navy. That germ was planted in the maritime soil of Rhode-Island. It has flourished ; and its branches now reach every sea, every ocean ; and the glory of our country sets in safety under their shade.

Who, in our State, or our Assembly, first intimated the building of a national fleet, cannot now be known. There is no record of his name. It might be George Champlin, or Wil-

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liam Bradford, or John Brown, or Welcome Arnold. It was for our country a glorious conception ; and twin-brother to the bright idea of Themistocles, who taught the Athenians that the wooden walls of the Delphic Oracle, were that national navy with which they destroyed, or dispersed, the fleet of Xerxes, and secured the liberties of the Grecian States.

It is true, our literature has hitherto been silent concerning our own achievements, and but for this humble effort, the facts, now stated, would have been left rusting in our records like a sword in the scabbard, until drawn out and held up to the world by men of other States.

It is remarked by historians, that the Spartans satisfied themselves by doing gallant deeds ; while the Athenians not only knew how to perform, but also how to celebrate heroic exploits.

What Decatur said of Lawrence, might be said of Rhode-Island. u The young fellow," exclaimed the hero of Tripoli, " has not much talk for himself ; but there is no more dodge in him than there is in the main-mast."

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On the 25th of November, 1775, Congress took into consideration the rules and orders for the fleet of the United Colonies. On Tuesday, the 28th, they were debated, paragraph by paragraph, and finally agreed to and settled. December 22d, the committee for engaging armed vessels, reported that they had engaged four, viz. :

The Columbus, Abraham Whipple, Captain ; the Alfred Dudley, Saltonstall, Captain ; the Andrew Dorea, James Biddle, Captain ; the Cabbott, John Burroughs Hopkins, Captain. That they had appointed Esek Hopkins commodore of the fleet. That they had appointed John Paul Jones, Rhodes Arnold, Haysted

first Lieutenants ; and Benjamin Seabury, Joseph Olney, Elisha Weaver, Thomas Weaver, and M'Dougal, second Lieutenants.

This is the first American fleet which ever hoisted sail to the winds of heaven. The project of such a fleet was first proposed by the General Assembly of Rhode-Island. It was laid before Congress by the delegates from Rhode-Island ; as, I believe, Rhode-Island fur-

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nished two of the ships — and, we all know that Rhode-Island furnished the Commodore of the fleet ; two of the Captains ; three of the first, and four of the second Lieutenants ; and in all probability, most, if not all the other officers and men for at least two of the ships.

This report was received and established ; and Commodore Hopkins, with the fleet under his command, was ordered to proceed to the Bahama Islands, and capture the warlike stores of Great Britain deposited at New Providence; and then to cruise on the coast of the Carolinas, and intercept the British vessels found in those waters.

The first of these orders was fulfilled to the letter. For the Commodore more than loaded his fleet with those stores ; and was obliged to impress one of the colonial vessels to aid in bringing' away the captured cannon and munitions of war. It is believed he sailed from the United Colonies early in February, 1776 ; for on the 3d of March, of that year, he captured the fort at New Providence.

After this success, his fleet being deeply laden with stores so highly important to the

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Colonies, he, to secure these valuable stores, returned directly, and unladed them at New- London.

Sir Peter Parker was, at the same time, approaching Charleston, S. C, with a powerful British fleet. He made his attack on that place, June 17th, 1776 ; and had Commodore Hopkins cruised on that coast, he must have, in all probability, met the English fleet of much greater force than his own, and nothing short of a miracle could have saved his fleet with all their stores, from capture and entire loss.

On the 19th of August, 1776, Commodore Hopkins was ordered by Congress to join the fleet. In the following November, the rank and pay of naval officers were raised, and a bounty given on captured guns.

The ranks, above Captain, were Admiral, Vice-Admiral, Rear-Admiral, and Commodore. Esek Hopkins, of North-Providence, in the State of Rhode-Island, was the first, and the only American, who, in an American fleet, bore the title of Admiral.

These facts prove, that, at the commencement of the Revolution, the people of Rhode-

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Island were in advance of the other colonies, in skill and enterprise in naval affairs. They also prove, that the American navy, which bears over the ocean, and in view of all nations, the power of our country, was originated in Rhode-Island.

When these things are considered, and it is called to mind that Commodore Perry was a native of Rhode-Island, and that he carried with him from that State up to the lake, those men, who, under his direction, with the aid of a few others, built and equipped that fleet, which, under his command, subdued the enemy on those waters, it is not too much to regard this distinguished enterprise as a part of the maritime affairs of Rhode-Island. Be this as it may, the achievement was glorious for our country, and no manner of considering it can diminish its merits or tarnish its splendor.

Nothing more is claimed for the Lecture than what may be due to a plain and true account of the fleet and battle, drawn from a faithful examination of all the evidence in the case.

Providence, August, A. D. 1839.

LECTURE.

It is the purpose of the present lecture to give a concise narrative of the fleet and battle on Lake Erie.

In the summer of 1812, Oliver Hazard Perry, of Rhode-Island, a young man, Captain in the United States Navy, was commander of a flotilla of gun-boats, which, — as Burke says of chivalry, had been deemed in our country the cheap defence of nations, — collected for the protection of the waters of our coast, from Newport to New York.

In the winter of 1812-13, he was ordered to Lake Erie, to take the command, and provide a fleet for that station. The enemy had then, on those waters, two ships, two brigs, ana several schooners and sloops, in all, mounting more than sixty-four guns. The Americans had the Caledonia, a brig, afterwards mounting three guns, and two or three unarmed small schooners or sloops. The British had, by land as well as by water, the entire command of that lake ; and the frontier, bordering upon it, was at the mercy of General Proctor and his savage allies.

Commodore Perry arrived at Erie on the 26th of March, 1813. He carried with him from Newport, 149 men and 3 boys, all of whom v/ere volunteers. Some were commissioned officers, some warrant officers, some artificers, some seamen, and some ordinary seamen. About one third of the petty officers and men remained at Sackett's Harbor, for service on Lake Ontario. This was done by the order of Commodore Chauncey, the commander on that lake. It greatly retarded the operations of Perry on lake Erie ; and was, doubtless, intended by Chauncey to have that effect. They had left Newport, February 19th, with Perry.

and had volunteered from pure personal attachment to him.

Nothinsr can show this attachment to Perrv more strongly than the fact, that James Weaver, a master's mate, who, a boy, when Barton captured Prescott, was then his guide, now volunteered to go to Erie with his gallant young townsman, in the dead of winter, to this unknown northern service.

The fleet of Eneas, so Maro sings, when riding at anchor in the Tyber, and, in his absence attacked by the Rutulians, and likely to be burned, was, by a miracle of poetic mythology, changed into a shoal of dolphins, and went off sporting down the stream ; and if so, they may, for aught we know, be at this time playing about the mouth of that river ; or shewing their bright sides to the sun, in other parts of the Tyrean sea.

Perry, and his hardy Rhode-Island mariners, travelled up to the lake, for something not quite so poetic.

They were required to change the oaks, and the green pines and hemlocks, then standing on those shores, into a fleet of ships and vessels, and fit them out to encounter, and overcome, in battle, on those waters, a fleet then armed, equipped and manned with British sailors ; men, who had never, before that time, met an equal, in any fleet, on that element.

In this there was no poetry, nor any other miracle than bone labor, matchless skill, and unconquerable bravery.

Every Yankee is an axe man ; and all the companions of Perry were of the full blood ; and most of them the best of that blood, the Rhode-Island stock.

These, with a few more shipwrights, smiths, caulkers, riggers, and sailmaker^, built and equipped this fleet ; and launched the whole into the harbor of Erie, rigged and ready to sail, in about ninety days, after the first blow was struck.

They built from the stump, six vessels ; the Lawrence, of twenty guns — two long twelves, and eighteen 24 pound carronades ; the Niagara, of two long twelves, and eighteen 24 pound carronades ; the Ariel, of four guns, 18\s and 24's ; the Scorpion, of two guns, thirtytwos ; the Porcupine, of one gun, a thirty-two; and the Tigress, of one gun, a thirty-two.

During the same time, they repaired and made efficient, the Caledonia, of three guns, 24's and 32's-; the Somers, of two guns, thirty-twos ; the Trippe, of one gun, a thirty-two, and the Ohio, of like force, but not in the battle.

At the mouth of the harbor of Erie, there is a bar ; and on this, the water was then so shallow, that the vessels could not be floated out over it. They had been built in this place, because, in no other on the lake, could they be secure from the enemy.

To carry them out over the bar, in the face of this enemy, superior in force, had they all been furnished with guns, and, as it must be, entirely unarmed, was a labor, which tasked the Yankee invention, no less than the valor, of the vounsr Commodore and his associates.

Thev were loaded on the backs of camels,

and carried out over the bar into deep water.

An Arab, who, from the back of his camel, on

the desert, had, at a safe distance, looked at 2*

LECTURE.

the French and English fleets, in the bay oi Abouker, would not believe a word of all this

story.

It is literally true. These camels were of simple mechanism, and American manufacture. They were long, broad, deep boxes, made of planks, like scows, and perfectly water tight ; with holes to fill, and sink, and pumps to exhaust them of water, and raise them so as to float with their upper edge high above the surface. These, placed on each side, and connected by strong beams, on which the vessels being placed when they were sunk; thus raised the vessels up above the bar, when the camels were pumped out, and rose again by their own buoyancy.

The guns of the fleet had been mounted in batteries on the shore ; and the militia, under General Mead, then encamped in the neighborhood, were embodied, and united with the seamen in defending these vessels, while they were thus travelling over the bar, on the backs of these able bodied camels.

Thus, in the face of an enemy, superior in force, this fleet was built, put afloat, and equipped. The enemy, however, before they were ready to make sail, withdrew to the harbor near Maiden ; and retired under the guns of the British fortress.

The American fleet, when ready for sailing, consisted of the Lawrence, the flag vessel of Commodore Perry ; the Niagara, afterwards Captain Elliott ; the Caledonia, Lieutenant Turner ; the Ariel, Lieutenant Packett ; the Scorpion, Sailing-Master Champlin ; the Somers, Sailing-Master Almy ; the Trippe, Lieutenant Stevens ; the Tigress, Lieutenant Conklin ; the Porcupine, Midshipman Smith. The Ohio had sailed down the lake, on other service, before the 10th of September, and was not in the battle.

These nine vessels, mounted, in all, fifty-four guns ; ten less than the British fleet. The Lawrence, the Niagara, the Caledonia, the Ariel, and the Scorpion, were all equally good and fine sailers ; but the Somers, Trippe, Tigress, and Porcupine, were dull.

The British vessels were stout built, with thick bulwarks of solid oak ; but the American were built in a hasty manner, and intended merely to carry guns and men ; and bring them down along side of their adversary.

So soon as Perry had mounted his guns on board, he pushed out on a cruise ; but manned in a considerable part by brave fellows from the militia. They run np, and over the lake, to the British side, and passed their fleet, then in port ; but no movement being made by the enemy to come out, and capture the Americans, they leisurely sailed down the lake, and then up again to their port, at Put-in-Bay.

At the pressing request of Perry, Commodore Chauncey sent him one hundred men, up from Ontario, under the command of Captain Elliot. He took the command of the Niagara, before commanded by Lieutenant Turner, of Newport. The one hundred men, brought with him, were all able bodied, and had been in considerable service, on the waters of Ontario and Erie. Most of these went on board the Niagara, with Elliot. This gave that vessel a decided superiority, in that respect, to any other in the fleet.

In model, in equipment, in rigging, sails and movement, she was, before that, on a par with the Lawrence ; and these men having been in more service, more brave they could not be, gave the Niagara a decided superiority in that respect, to the Lawrence.

Lieutenant Turner mentioned this to Commodore Perry, when Elliot was calling the men who came with him, to their several stations ; but because Elliot had brought them up to Erie with him, the Commodore declined altering his arrangement.

The deficiency of men in the fleet, was supplied by brave fellows, volunteering from the ranks of General Harrison's army.

This army was then encamped in the neighborhood of the fleet ; and waiting the event of the battle, which, it was believed, would enable the Commodore to transport the General and his troops, to the other side, to encounter General Proctor, and the British forces then near Maiden.

The Americans were eager to engage, and open the way into Canada. General Harrison and his brave companions, were anxious to have an opportunity to wash off in their own blood, the foul blot, placed on the American character, by the retreat, and surrender of Maiden and Detroit ; and by driving the British and their Indian allies, from Upper Canada, to secure the frontiers of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New-York.

How long the British fleet might have kept their shelter, in the harbor of Maiden, is not known. Exigencies called them out ; the want of provision, in the British army, compelled them to put out, and attempt to clear the lake of the American fleet; so that they might, with safety, run down to Long Point, their depot of stores, and provision the camp.

The British fleet had a veteran commander, the American, a young sailor. Barclay had conquered with Nelson, at Traffalgar; Perry had probably never seen the combined movement of ships, in a fleet, formed in line of battle.

The two fleets might be equal in number of men ; but all, in the British, were seamen, or marines, or soldiers ; while many, in the American, were militia, or new levies, from the ranks of the army.

In number of vessels, we exceeded by three ; the enemy had a superiority of ten in the number of guns. The vessels of the enemy were impervious to the shot of our carronades; but their long guns hulled the thin sides of our vessels, through and through. Let him be praised who has told us that " the battle is not always to the strong."

Two of the British vessels were ships; none of the American were better provided with masts, spars, rigging, and sails, than brigs might carry. The Detroit, Commodore Barclay's flag ship, had nineteen guns only; but they were long 12% 18's and 24's. He was supported in his command, by Captain Finnis, of the Queen Charlotte ; in the whole fleet were three Captains and the Commodore. While in the American, there was but two Captains, Perry and Elliot ; all the other vessels were commanded by Lieutenants, Sailing- Masters, or Midshipmen.

The evening before the battle, the order of engagement was settled. By this, Captain Elliot, in the Niagara, was to lead the van; and it was determined, to attack the enemy, at their anchorage, if they did not come out to engage. On the morning of the 10th, when the enemy hove in sight, and had formed with their flag ship at the head of the line ; Perry who had determined to attack that ship himself, changed the order of sailing, run down to the encounter, and took the van himself.

This change in the order of sailing, was instantly communicated to the whole fleet, by signal.

The young Commodore, at the close of the 1 council of war, on the evening of the 9th, told his officers that he could not better advise them than in the words of Nelson : " If you lay I your enemy along side, you cannot be out of your ' : place."

He then gave the order to each commanding officer of the fleet, in writing. This order closed with these words : " Engage each your designated adversary, in close action, at half cable's length." In this designation the Lawrence was opposed to the Detroit ; the Caledonia^ with three guns, to the Hunter with ten ; the Niagara, to the Queen Charlotte.

In the American fleet, defectively manned as they were, one hundred and sixteen mei ' and officers, were on the sick-list, and unfit fo "•

- duty on the morning of the 10th of September, 1813, when they made sail, and stood out to encounter the enemy.

I have, perhaps, been prolix, in stating the particular circumstances of these two fleets ; because I find myself placed in the condition, not of the eulogist, but of the historian ; and, under the most solemn obligation to do exact justice, even here, in this very limited number of American people assembled in this place : to do justice, I say, in every word I utter ; and that, too, between the living and the dead.

For after a lapse of more than twenty-two years, from the day of that memorable battle, and fourteen years after Commodore Perry has been laid in his grave; while, during all this period of time, America and Europe, have, with one voice, awarded to him the honor of this triumphant victory, Captain Elliot has, very lately, claimed that honor for himself.

In the summer of 1836, a book of 480 octavo pages, was published at Philadelphia, as it purports ; but with the name of no printer and no writer annexed to it. This book is entitled " Biographical Notes of Commodore Jesse D. Elliot." About 250 pages of this book are devoted to an account of the battle on Lake Erie. It contains a great number of letters, addressed to Commodore Elliot, and which could be controlled by no one but himself. The book must, therefore, be regarded as autobiography.

Commodore Perry, in the moment of victory, flushed with youth and triumph ; on the eve of the 10th, says, in his first despatch to the Secretary of the Navy, " It has pleased the Almighty to give the arms of the United States a signal victory over their enemies on this lake."

Commodore Elliot, who, on that day, commanded the Niagara, says in the 35th page of his book : " It is not doing too much to say, that to /urn," Jesse D. Elliot, " the country is principally indebted for the honor of that splendid victory.''''

In page 195, he repeats that u it is proved to the satisfaction of every candid reader, that Captain Elliot was CHIEFLY instrumental in gaining the victory on Lake Erie." These are sweeping claims ; they should be examined with candor and without resentment.

Jesse D. Elliot, now a Commodore in the United States navy, comes with his claim against Oliver Hazard Perry, in his grave, for a reversal of the long established judgment of the world. He calls Pennsylvania, the vState where he was born, to support his claim against Rhode-Island, the birth-place of Perry. If Rhode-Island never before lowered her flag to Pennsylvania, yet, if justice require it, let her lower it now. Nevertheless, first of all, review the case ; and then decide. I will, impartially, state the facts ; and you, in the same spirit, may judge.

On the night of the 9th of September, 1813, the American fleet lay moored at Put-in-Bay, on the southwest shore of Erie. At daylight on the 10th, the enemy were discovered from the mast head of the Lawrence, far up the lake in the northwest. This was, by signal, immediately communicated to the fleet ; and, at the same time, the signal was given to get under weierh. Perrv told his officers and men.

that the enemy should fight that day. The wind being southwest, and light, the Commodore inquired of Sailing-Master Taylor whether he could work out of the bay, to the windward of the islands, at the mouth of it. When told he could not, "then," said he, " wear ship ; go out to the leeward, and give the enemy the wind of us." Before this could be done, the wind started from southwest to southeast, and gave our squadron a fair passage out, to the windward of that of the enemy. By this event, the American fleet, and every vessel of them, was enabled to take and to keep any distance from her adversary, which each of them might choose. This fact must be continually recollected, as we go on through the whole conflict. There had been a struggle, by the English Commodore, to get the weathergage ; but, as it appears, after the wind had shifted, and settled into the southeast, he gave it up, and at 10 o'clock, A. M., hove to in a line of battle, with his ships heading to the westward, and at the distance of about three leagues,

Commodore Perry, soon after, hoisted his broad pennant on board the Lawrence, inscribed with the immortal words of him whose name his vessel bore — " DonH give up the ship." And at the sight of it, the loud huzzas of the mariners resounded over the lake, from deck to deck, along- the whole American line ; and awakened the echoes which had been sleeping on those waters and shores, ever since the morning stars sang together. Our fleet approached the enemy, at an angle of about thirty degrees ; so that, when the van-ship, the Lawrence, came into close action with the Detroit, the third, the Niagara, might be out of carronade shot distance. The signal was given, by the Commodore, for each ship to engage her adversary, as she came up, and as designated in previous orders. Remember, those orders made the Lawrence the adversary of the Detroit, the Caledonia of the Hunter, and the Niagara of the Queen Charlotte ; and there, in full view, lay those gallant British adversaries, with topsails back to the mast, with matches lighted, coolly waiting for the