For th e Americans laboring under primitive conditions at Erie, the situation was difficult-for the British it was next to impossible. Both commanders, Perry and Robert Barclay, were constantly beseeching their superiors for more men and supplies of every kind. By the time they met in battle on 10 September 1813, Perry had the stronger squadron in numbers and weight of metal. His advantage was dissipated, however, by his smaller vessels which lagged behind out of range, and by the lack of support from Master Commandant Jesse D. Elliott, Perry's second in command. The resul ting battle was an extremely hardfought and bloody action at close range among the cluster of vessels at the center. (A fuller description of the Bartle of Lake Erie will be the subject of a subsequent article in Sea History in 2013). The rwo best-known phrases in US naval history"Don't Give Up The Ship" and "We have met the enemy and they are ours"-are both associated with this battle. The dramatic American victory had equally dramatic results. Cut off from supply by water, the British abandoned Detroit and Amherstburg. Perry's vessels executed a textbook model of an amphibious landing to set General Harrison in hot pursuit of the retreating British force, which was overtaken and defeated ar Moraviantown. Harrison did not pursue the routed remnants, being logistically overextended
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himself, but the most important event at this barde was the death ofTecumseh, after which the British-Indian alliance fell apart. The Barde of Lake Erie was not the turning point of the war, because the war didn't really have one. The significance of this battle was that the US regained what had been bungled away at the beginning of the war. H ad the British and Indian allies been in possession ofDetroitat the time of the peace negotiation, the Canadian border might now run along the Michigan/Indiana line. In 1814 the Lake Erie squadron made a failed attempt to recapture Mackinac, but by then the west had become a backwater of the war. Lake Ontario proved a shipbuilding stalemate, while the Niagara peninsula was invaded once again and became the scene of the most intense fighting of the war: Chippewa, Lundy's Lane, and Fort Erie. By this time the US Army had learned from its early mistakes and was promoting younger, more aggressive generals who understood rhe need for intense training. It proved it could stand toe-totoe against British regulars. Still, it had to withdraw across the Niagara River for the third year in a row. In the fal l, the British could claim to have chased the Americans back into port with the commissioning of rhe St. Lawrence, a 100-gun first rare. To the commander of such a large ship in a lake that only offered a half-dozen anchorages, Lake Ontario probably felt about as large as a skating rink. Had the war lasted into 1815, the Americans would have commissioned rwo even larger first rates, the Chippewa and New Orleans, which were
being built at the Navy Yard at Sackets Harbor at the turn of the new year. 1814 was a year of dire peril for the United States. The defeat and abdication of Napoleon in April 1814 freed up seasoned British troops and seamen, who were sent to reinforce their North American countrymen and to fin ally put paid to the American nuisance. While the US focused its efforts on making one more attempt to take the Niagara Peninsula, rwo British expeditions sailed to the United States, one from across the Adantic to the Chesapeake, and the other southwards from Canada down rhe Richelieu-ChamplainHudson River corridor. The first was an extended raid of the Chesapeake Bay economy. Norfolk was bypassed, having put up a stout defense in 1813; the real target was Baltimore, a rich city for prize money and the nest of American privateering. Washington, DC, was attacked only when the weakness and incompetence of its defense was revealed. Ironically, the time spent burning Washington ultimately saved Baltimore by providing both time and addition al incentive to strengthen entrenchments and batteries aro und the approaches. The British gave up when rhey couldn't get past Fort McHenry at the entrance to Baltimore Harbor. Out of the failed British assault, rhe United States preserved the city of Baltimore and got its national anthem . The more dangerous threat was coming from the other expedition, which was rwice as large-more than 10,000 menand poised to invade from the north via the 25