We Have Met the Enemy  

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Oliver Hazard Perry and the Battle of Lake Erie

By Captain David Poyer '71, USNR (Ret.)

The war whose 200th anniversary we mark this year is faint in our historical memory. We dimly recall it as "the second American Revolution." Beyond that float a few indistinct images; Jackson riding along bulwarks of cotton bales at New Orleans; Old Ironsides exchanging broadsides with HMS GUERRIÈRE, JAVA, LEVANT and CYANE.

The turning point of the War of 1812 was not New Orleans, or even the burning of Washington, but a naval engagement fought far from any Clausewitzian center of gravity. It was the biggest, bloodiest naval battle of the war and a close-run one. It was also a strange foreshadowing of our efforts in nearly every war since—unreadiness, confusion, desperate efforts to catch up and final victory, but at terrific cost.

Although difficulties with the British over neutral shipping to Napoleonic Europe had been an irritant for years, and the Chesapeake affair focused anti-British antagonism,1 perhaps the major inciter of war came in the Northwest Territory, where Tecumseh and his brother the Prophet sought to build an Indian nation between the Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes,2 hemming the United States back from the still-undefined Louisiana Purchase.3 War offered the opportunity not only to resolve maritime issues, but to destroy Britain's support of the tribes. Finally, the Republican (Jeffersonian) Party believed war could unify their party.4

Madison convened the War Congress in November 1811, and measures were passed to expand the Army (though not the Navy).5 British attempts to avert conflict were too little, too late, and the closest declaration of war vote in U.S. history passed.6 "On June 18, 1812, the United States with defense forces consisting of a 6,700-man army, a total of 18 seagoing warships, and a scattering of gunboats, mostly out of commission, formally declared war on the Mistress of the Seas."7

What strategy existed, in the absence of anything resembling a planning staff, seemed to be to fight a defensive war on the seas and an offensive campaign against Canada. The war hawks believed that campaign would be quick. Most of the inhabitants of Lower Canada were French, of doubtful loyalty.8 9 North of the Great Lakes, in "Upper Canada," at least a third were American by birth or descent.10 And there were only 4,500 British regular troops to defend over a thousand miles of frontier.11 Even Thomas Jefferson said the capture of Canada would be "a mere matter of marching."12

The campaign got under way while the great single-ship frigate actions, and privateer warfare, went on in the Atlantic and the South Seas. To make a long story short, poorly organized U.S. regulars and militia crossed the borders near Detroit, in the west, near the Niagara, in the center, and toward Montreal, in the east. All were thrown back, and 1812 ended with the Americans totally frustrated in their attempts to conquer their neighbor to the north.13

But late that year, someone at the Navy Department realized the key to Canada was water transport. As Commodore Isaac Chauncey said, "...the best means to conquer the Canada's (sic) was... by taking and maintaining a position on the St. Lawrence—this would be killing the tree by "girdling"—the branches deprived of their ordinary Supplies from the root, die of necessity."14 In September, the Navy Department sent Commodore Chauncey to command a naval offensive on the Great Lakes.

By 1812, the name Oliver Hazard Perry was well known in the Navy. Perry, a Rhode Islander, was the son of a merchant skipper who had fought both on land and sea in the Revolution. The younger Perry early on showed an intellectual streak, as well as a natural leadership ability.15 At the age of 13, he persuaded his father, who had been placed in command of one of the six frigates authorized by the Naval Act of 1794,16 to add his name to a request for appointment as a midshipman.17

The younger Perry, tall for the times (about 5 feet 8 inches), curly-haired and somewhere between robust and plump,18 had accumulated 14 years of service, fought French privateers off Haiti, and watched his friend David Porter lead an amphibious assault near Tripoli. He served under and learned from John Rodgers in the Mediterranean. During the embargo, he supervised construction of several gunboats, then commanded a squadron of them based out of the New York Navy Yard, of which Isaac Chauncey was the commander.19 From 1809 to 1811 he commanded the schooner REVENGE, facing off with the British off the coast of Florida and Georgia, until he lost the ship by grounding in fog.20

In 1812 he was 27, a master commandant (roughly equivalent to a commander), and back commanding gunboats, this time in Newport. Impatient for action, he wrote to Chauncey for an assignment on the Great Lakes. In January 1813, Chauncey asked the Secretary of the Navy for his services.21 Perry took with him between 140 and 150 officers and men. His assignment would be to supervise construction of, then, presumably, command, a new fleet,22 with a deadline set by Commodore Chauncey of the first of June 1813.23 If control of the lake could be wrestled away from the British, who already had a fleet there under Captain Robert Finnis, Royal Navy, supplies would be cut off to the western tribes and the way clear for a reinvasion.24 But could it be done before the British struck and burned the new ships on their stocks?

Perry did not exactly begin building his fleet from scratch. The Navy had already authorized a Lake Erie shipmaster named Daniel Dobbins to start building gunboats at Presque Isle (today's Erie, PA).25 Perry's leadership and manpower added to that workforce, as did Noah Brown, a New York shipbuilder sent to complete the gunboats and also build two 200-ton brigs.26 Yet significant difficulties impeded building a fleet in the middle of what was then a raw wilderness—what James Fenimore Cooper called "all the embarrassments of his frontier position."27 Roads were nonexistent, or mere mud-lanes; transporting a single cannon from Albany through the woods cost a thousand dollars; a barrel of flour, a hundred.28 Every bit of metal, powder, ordnance, oakum, sailcloth, rope, tools, fittings had to be manhandled west. There were plenty of trees, but no time to waste on seasoning their wood. Once the lake ice broke up, the British fleet could sail to Presque Isle. He would have to build his fleet of green wood, and accept leakage and early rot.

Perry began with logistics. He needed iron and rope—iron was being smelted and rope, anchors and cannon fabricated in Pittsburgh, even then a major town with a population of 6,000. He organized a combination keelboat and toll road routes to hurry the stores to Erie. When there still wasn't enough iron, he sent his men on scavenger hunts to nearby farms. He recruited labor, carpenters, riggers and blockmakers from as far away as Philadelphia.29

Energized by the new commander, things began to happen. Perry's attention to detail extended down to "combat loading" his transport wagons—each was to carry only one item and go directly where that was needed for construction.30 Gunboats, small, fast command ships, and the heaviest ships, two 20-gun brigs,31 were quickly put together, though they were still unarmed and unmanned. He paid attention to counterintelligence, alerting local innkeepers to contact him if any strangers checked in.32 As spring approached, Perry attended to force protection, realizing that an enemy landing could easily destroy the yard and the nascent fleet.33 He prepared his land defenses, sited what few heavy guns had made it to Erie at a makeshift fort and dunned local militia commanders for men and muskets.

The British missed that chance; but they had not been idle. At Amherstburg, Upper Canada, shipwrights worked on a new warship, named Detroit, to forestall the impending challenge.34, 35 By the spring Perry's Royal Navy counterpart had put together the following fleet from builds and captures: QUEEN CHARLOTTE, 400 tons, 17 guns; LADY PREVOST, 200 tons, 13 guns; HUNTER, 180 tons, 10 guns; and two lighter "cruisers" of about 100 tons each. Still under construction was the heaviest, DETROIT, at 500 tons and 19 guns.36 (To place these in scale for the times, CONSTITUTION displaced about 1,600 tons and carried 44 guns, and HMS VICTORY about 3,500 tons and 104 guns.37 The larger ships carried heavier guns, of course, as well as more of them.) DETROIT was not only bigger than any of Perry's ships, it was much more heavily constructed.38 But the British, too, had to struggle with labor, ammunition supply and manning. DETROIT had to be gunned with a miscellaneous battery manhandled overland from a local fort.39 Both sides were at the far end of a very long pipeline.

That May, Chauncey and General Henry Dearborn planned an attack on Fort George, which guarded the water passage between Lakes Ontario and Erie. They asked for Perry's help, promising command of the naval landing force.40 Perry helped plan the successful opposed joint amphibious landing, and provided fire support, wiping out an attempted ambush.41 This victory—led in person by Perry and Lieutenant Colonel Winfield Scott—triggered a ripple effect, giving the U.S. control of both banks of the Niagara River42 and cutting the British supply line to points west.43

As soon as the passage was clear, Perry and fifty-some officers and seamen went to Black Rock, NY. The previous autumn, Lieutenant Jesse Elliott, from Lake Ontario, had bought and captured five ships.44 Perry cordelled them up the Niagara River to join his fleet. The effort of towing, plus an attack of either typhoid or the malarial fever from which he had suffered for years, almost put him on his back. His slipping past the British, who were out in force looking for him, was pure luck; though both were ready for battle,45 the fleets passed each other in the Lake Erie fog, perhaps by not more than half a mile.46

Unbeknownst to Perry, the Canadian Provincial Marine Squadron had a new commander. A year younger than Perry, Robert Heriot Barclay had joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman at age 11. In 1805, he was posted to Horatio Nelson's VICTORY. He fought at Trafalgar on HMS SWIFTSURE and was commended for saving French sailors from the gale afterward. He later lost his left arm in battle with a French convoy.47

Back at Presque Isle, getting over the protecting bar just ahead of the pursing Barclay, Perry was confronted once again with what was now his major shortfall. He had boys and backwoodsmen, but only a few boatswains or gunners, many of whom were sick or worthless for other reasons. Apparently each naval command, as new drafts went west, kept the best and sent on the dregs.48 Perry needed about 740 men to fully crew his squadron.49

The news of his friend James Lawrence's death aboard CHESAPEAKE was a heavy blow. Perry named one of his new brigs LAWRENCE and ordered his purser to create a battle flag. It was dark blue wool, inscribed with his friend's last words in white muslin letters. (This is the flag in the Naval Academy Museum; the one in Memorial Hall now is a replica.)50 It was stitched in Erie for the battle all knew was impending.51

Barclay was now maintaining a close blockade outside the bar, waiting for the Americans to emerge. His opponent, however, was still trying to obtain anchors and warm bodies. By late July, still blockaded, Perry had about 300 men, not counting sick and invalids.52 Not as many as he and Chauncey had felt he'd need, but after several months of drilling he judged them capable enough.53 But his brigs, the largest ships, drew nine feet, and he only had about six feet at the bar even at high tide. He could remove guns and lighten ships to pass, but if Barclay caught him crossing, the new fleet would be demolished in short order. Perry fumed, angry at Barclay's "bearding me,"54 as he put it, but he was essentially helpless.

The answer broke on the last day of July when he looked to lakeward to see no sails. Some sources credit Barclay's temporary retirement to a dinner invitation; others, to the need for resupply.55 Whatever the reason, Perry made his decision. He would cross his own personal Rubicon—the Presque Isle bar.

Noah Brown, the lead shipbuilder, had built hollow camels to help lift the ships. Perry covered the effort with his brigs' guns and his land-based artillery. By dint of backbreaking, unsleeping efforts, they had Lawrence over the bar and rearmed by midnight of 3 August. At 1100 the next morning the sails of the returning British were on the horizon. By that narrow a margin—since Barclay, observing through the haze, thought the whole fleet was outside—did Perry win his gamble.56

But an even greater one lay ahead.

Probably the best work of scholarship available on the battle is David Skaggs's Oliver Hazard Perry: Honor, Courage and Patriotism in the Early U.S. Navy, Naval Institute Press. The following discussion owes a great deal to that account, unless otherwise noted.

Perry took his new fleet to sea on 6 August, looking for a fight. They didn't find it and returned to Erie. On the 9th, Lieutenant Elliott and more than 100 officers and seamen arrived, considerably stiffening Perry's force and his confidence.

On 12 August, the squadron sailed east from Presque Isle for a meeting and strategy planning session with General Henry Harrison. Perry garnered another 130 volunteers from his troops. From there he anchored at Put-in-Bay and stood by for either supporting an amphibious invasion across the lake or the opposing fleet to leave its fort-protected anchorage and sally out for a battle. He maintained reconnaissance on the enemy and worked his men hard on gunnery and marksmanship drills—apparently, unlike Royal Navy practice in that era. Of equal importance, he convened his captains to concert a plan.

Skaggs says:
" What Perry was attempting to accomplish was without precedent in the U.S. Navy of the time—combat with a line of battle."57 There were no fighting instructions, such as the Royal Navy had, nor any common tactical doctrine. In consequence, his orders seem to us both rigid and simplistic.

He assigned each ship a specific adversary of equivalent size and weight of metal, insofar far as he knew. He showed his officers the LAWRENCE flag, the hoist of which would signal them to close in.58

As the days wore on, Perry also contemplated either a night raid or an attack on the British as they lay at anchor at Amherstburg. But even as they discussed this, Barclay had sailed.

The British came in sight at dawn on 10 September. Perry's own after action report to the Secretary of the Navy stated:

Sir,

U.S. Schooner ARIEL, Put-in-Bay, September 13th, 1813.

In my last I informed you that we had captured the enemy's fleet on this lake. I have now the honor to give you the most important particulars of the action.

On the morning of the 10th instant, at sunrise, they were discovered from Put-in-Bay, where I lay at anchor with the squadron under my command. We got under way, the wind light at S.W., and stood for them. At ten a.m. the wind hauled to S.E. and brought us to windward; formed the line, and bore up. At fifteen minutes before twelve, the enemy commenced firing; at five minutes before twelve, the action commenced on our part. Finding their fire very destructive, owing to their long guns, and its being mostly directed at the LAWRENCE, I made sail, and directed the other vessels to follow, for the purpose of closing with the enemy. Every brace and bowline being soon shot away, she became unmanageable, notwithstanding the great exertions of the sailing master. In this situation, she sustained the action upwards of two hours, within canister distance, until every gun was rendered useless, and the greater part of her crew either killed or wounded. Finding she could no longer annoy the enemy, I left her in charge ofLieutenant Yarnall, who, I was convinced, from the bravery already displayed by him, would do what would comport with the honor of the flag. At half past two, the wind springing up, Captain Elliott was enabled to bring his vessel, the NIAGARA, gallantly into close action. I immediately went on board of her, when he anticipated my wishes, by volunteering to bring the schooners, which had been kept astern by the lightness of the wind, into closer action. It was with unspeakable pain that I saw, soon after I got on board the NIAGARA, the flag of the LAWRENCE come down; although was perfectly sensible that she had been defended to the last, and that, to have continued to make a show of resistance would have been a wanton sacrifice of the remains of her brave crew. But the enemy was not able to take possession of her, and circumstances soon permitted her flag again to be hoisted. At forty-five minutes past two the signal was made for "closer action." The NIAGARA being very little injured, I determined to pass through the enemy's line; bore up, and passed ahead of their two ships and a brig, saving a raking fire to them, from the starboard guns, and to a large schooner and sloop from the larboard side, at half pistol shot distance. The smaller vessels, at this time, having got within grape and canister distance, under the direction of Captain Elliott, and keeping up a well directed fire, the two ships, a brig, and schooner, surrendered, a schooner and sloop making a vain attempt to escape.

Those officers and men who were immediately under my observation, evinced the greatest gallantry; and I have no doubt that all others conducted themselves as became American officers and seamen.59

The two squadrons began the battle sailing almost directly at one another with a light offshore wind from the southwest.

Despite both sides' most valiant efforts of building, manning and supply, the result was perhaps the most evenly matched battle in U.S. naval history. Perry held the advantage in weight of metal; Barclay, in long-range guns and better-built ships. Personnel records are spotty on both sides, but probably Barclay had about a 100 more men in his fleet; 562, versus about 475 available for duty on the American side.60 But Perry had three more ships than his enemy. Barclay had the more skilled and experienced officers; Perry had drilled his men remorselessly in the basics, especially gunnery.

Yet both commanders were utterly determined. Each knew the fate of a campaign, and perhaps of a war, hung on his efforts that day. Perry fought the wind for almost three hours to round Rattlesnake Island and gain the weather gage—that is, to position himself upwind of his enemy, traditionally the position of advantage in the age of sail for several reasons.61 However, he was frustrated by the inability of his two brigs to beat to windward. At about 10 the wind backed; he had the weather gage he'd tried for all morning. He cleared the island and sailed slowly out into the open bay.

At about the same time, Barclay came right, steadying his six ships on a very slow westerly course, awaiting his opponent.

Closing slowly, Perry used the time to consult with an army captain aboard NIAGARA who could identify the British ships. He then revised his own line, to once more place his units opposite those of equal strength. At 1100, still sailing slowly toward the British, he hoisted the LAWRENCE flag and ordered grog and midday meal to be served. Perhaps remembering Nelson's fate at Trafalgar, he exchanged his officer's coat for a seaman's.62

Barclay opened fire at 1145, at a range of a mile and a half, from where he had effectively crossed Perry's T. The American, snailing along toward the English line, could not respond effectively to Barclay's long guns. Perry endured this fire for half an hour, until he was close enough to wear left and fire a broadside from his carronades.

For the next two hours, the two flagships fought it out, while astern some, though not all, of their consorts engaged as fiercely. The second American brig, Elliott's Niagara, on the other hand, maintained her assigned station farther back. This was in accordance with orders, but made him appear to be hanging back out of the action. The small cutters, too, hung back from the ferociously dueling flagships. Locked together at close range, slowly sailing west and neither side giving way, both sides took extremely heavy casualties. One by one LAWRENCE's guns were put out of action. By 1430, she could fight no longer.

It was at this point, surrounded by dead and wounded, unable to fight farther, that some commanders would have considered surrender. It was here that the British came closest to victory.

Meanwhile, NIAGARA had finally abandoned her ordered station and edged up to the action. Perry coolly ordered a cutter lowered. Taking the blue flag, he rowed himself across to the relatively undamaged second brig. Barclay ordered his guns to fire on the cutter; as balls plowed the water around them, Perry stood erect in the boat, perhaps to keep a shot-hole above the waterline,63 as the rowers sweated at the oars.

When he reached NIAGARA, an equivocal and long-debated conversation may or may not have taken place. One witness said Perry said something like "I am afraid the day is lost … the damned gunboats have ruined me." In this version, Elliott proposed that Perry take over his ship and that he, Elliott, should go back to the gunboats and bring them up.

Perry later derided this as a lie, and much ink was later used up debating who said what when, but truly this plan decided the battle, whoever came up with it. Elliott took a cutter back to the gunboats. Perry, now commanding NIAGARA as well as the squadron, took the fresh brig through the British line as the helpless LAWRENCE, colors struck, fell astern and out of the battle. With heavy casualties among the officers, and poorly trained crews, the two heaviest British ships then collided. Raked at close range to port by NIAGARA's double-shotted carronades, and from starboard by the gunboats Elliott had rowed up to them, Barclay's second in command hoisted a white flag. His commander had been carried below, wounded once again in the service of the Crown.

That afternoon Perry received Barclay's sword, but returned it as a mark of respect. The two smallest British ships tried to flee, but were overtaken and forced to surrender. Perry immediately dashed off his famous message to General Harrison. "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." He put officers aboard his captures, spent the night near West Sister Island64 then sailed slowly back to Put-in-Bay. The victory was complete, but both sides had fought valiantly and won each others' respect. Indeed, they even held a combined funeral service, with two chaplains officiating, both using the same Book of Common Prayer.65

American command of Lake Erie had significant effects. The first was Harrison's invasion of Canada along the Detroit frontier, culminating in the victory at the Battle of the Thames on 5 October, at which Perry served as one of Harrison's aides-de-camp. Tecumseh was killed in this battle and the Indian Confederacy shattered.66 The war was far from over, and much of the advantage Perry had gained was later frittered away by others, but the Northwestern Frontier was secure.

Perry received a Congressional Gold Medal, the thanks of Congress and was promoted to captain. He and Elliott fell out over the latter's conduct in the battle, though Perry had tried hard not to criticize Elliott publicly. In July he took command of the new frigate JAVA, and took some of her gun crews to fight in defense of Washington.67 After the war he commanded that ship in the Mediterranean. He died, apparently of yellow fever, while on a mission to South America in 1819.68

Today Perry's remains lie near a tall granite obelisk in Island Cemetery in Newport.69 NIAGARA is still preserved in Erie, PA, under the auspices of the Lake Erie Historical Association. LAKE ERIE (CG-70) is currently home ported in Honolulu. A tall Doric column of commemoration looks over the lake from Put-in-Bay, over a frontier that is now long settled, long pacified, less the boundary between two countries than a backyard shared by two friends.

Author's note: In 1963 a 15-year-old boy boarded NIAGARA, the first time he'd ever set foot on a ship or ever thought of the Navy as a career. That young man was I.

Special thanks are due on this article to James Cheevers, U.S. Naval Academy Museum and to Dr. David Curtis Skaggs, Bowling Green State University, who read and commented on it in draft. Many thanks for their support and suggestions.

Dave Poyer '71's latest novel is The Towers: A Novel of 9/11 (St. Martin's Press, August 2011). This and his other novels featuring Naval Academy graduate Dan Lenson are available in hardcover, paperback, Kindle and Nook. Visit his Facebook site or his website at www.poyer.com.

  1. Poyer, David. "The Chesapeake-Leopard Affair." Shipmate, August 2007, Part II Pps. 14-15.
  2. Personal communication from Dr. David Skaggs to the author, 7 March 2012.
  3. Dillon, pg. 57.
  4. Hickey, pg. 26.
  5. Hickey, pg. 35.
  6. Hickey, pg. 46.
  7. Potter and Nimitz, pg. 209.
  8. Hickey, pg. 73
  9. Also see Niagara Historical Museum's "Battle of Fort George, A paper read on 14 March 1896 by Ernest Cruikshank, Capt 44th Battalion," Niagara, 1896. Accessed 22 February 2012 at http://www.niagarahistorical.museum/media/NHS12The%20Battle%20of%20Fort%20George.pdf
  10. Coles, Harry L. The War of 1812. Chicago, 1965. Pg. 38-39. Quoted in Hickey.
  11. Potter, pg. 216.
  12. Potter and Nimitz, Sea Power, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1960. Pg. 209.
  13. Potter, pg. 216.
  14. Letter, Chauncey to William Jones, 5 November 1814. Quoted in Hickey.
  15. Dillon, Richard, We Have Met the Enemy: Oliver Hazard Perry, Wilderness Commodore. McGraw-Hill, New York, 1978. Pg. 2.
  16. Wikipedia, "Original Six Frigates of the United States Navy," accessed 22 February 2012.
  17. Dillon, pps. 3-4.
  18. Dillon, pg. Xiv.
  19. Dillon, pps. 16-27.
  20. Dillon, pps. 30-38.
  21. Dillon, pg. 60.
  22. Skaggs, David Curtis. "Perry Triumphant." Naval Institute Press, April 2009. Accessed at www.usni.org on 21 February 2012. Noted as Skaggs (1) below.
  23. Skaggs and Altoff, A Signal Victory. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1997. Pg. 71.
  24. Dillon, pps. 64-65.
  25. Dillon, pg. 58.
  26. David Curtis Skaggs, Oliver Hazard Perry: Honor, Courage, and Patriotism in the Early U.S. Navy. Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 2006. Pg. 60. Referred to as Skaggs (2) below.
  27. Cooper, James Fenimore. The History of the Navy of the United States of America, Vol. 2. Richard Bentley, London, 1832. Pg. 447.
  28. Dillon, pg. 64.
  29. Dillon, pg. 70-74.
  30. Dillon, pg. 76.
  31. Cooper, pg. 447.
  32. Dillon, pg. 78.
  33. Altoff, Gerard T. Deep Water Sailors, Shallow Water Soldiers. The Perry Group, Put-in-Bay, 1993. Pg. 4.
  34. Skaggs (1), pg 2.
  35. Personal communication
  36. from Dr. Skaggs to the author, 7 March 2012.
  37. Cooper, pg. 448. JFC presents a detailed discussion of tonnages, which I summarize here.
  38. Wikipedia, "USS CONSTITUTION" and "HMS Victory," accessed 22 February 2012.
  39. Skaggs (2), pg. 83.
  40. Skaggs and Altoff, pg. 68.
  41. Dillon, pg. 85.
  42. Mackenzie, Alexander, The Life of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, Harper & Bros., New York, 1843. Pps. 138-145.
  43. Mackenzie, pg. 148
  44. Bloom, Loren, "The Battle of Lake Erie." Accessed 22 February 2012, at www.battleoflakeerieart.com/battle.php.
  45. Hickey, pg.131.
  46. Altoff, pg. 8.
  47. Dillon, pg. 94.
  48. McKenna, Brian, The War of 1812, People and Stories: Robert Heriot Barclay. Accessed 22 February 2012 at www.galafilm.com/1812/e/people/barclay.html
  49. Mackenzie, pg. 189. See also Althoff, pg. 14.
  50. Dillon, pg. 98.
  51. Personal correspondence with Mr. James Cheevers of the Naval Academy Museum. The original flag looks brown now, but was most likely a very dark (Navy) blue. For another opinion on the original color see Scott Harmon, below.
  52. Scott Harmon, "The Perry Flag." Shipmate, September 2005, pg. 20, quoting an unpublished paper by James Cheevers.
  53. Mackenzie, pg. 166.
  54. U.S. Naval Institute/Naval History and Heritage Command. Naval History Blog. " The Battle of Lake Erie, 10 September 1813." Posted Friday, 10 September 2010, 12:01 a.m.
  55. Mackenzie, pg.161; quoting a letter from Perry to Chauncey
  56. Skaggs (2), pg. 74. Also Althoff, pg. 21.
  57. Skaggs (2), pg. 765.
  58. Skaggs (2), pg. 100.
  59. Skaggs, (2), pg. 100.
  60. "Capture of the British Fleet on Lake Erie and Brig Boxer. Communicated to the Senate, 31 December 1813." Accessed on 23 February 2012, at www.ibiblio.org/pha/USN/1813/18131231LakeErie.html
  61. Skaggs and Altoff, summarizing an extended discussion of manning from pps. 75-83.
  62. Harland, James. Seamanship in the Age of Sail. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1996. Pg. 48.
  63. Purser Hambleton's diary, quoted in Skaggs (2)
  64. Bloom, "Oliver Hazard Perry," accessed 23 February 2012.
  65. Personal communication from Dr. Skaggs to the author, 7 March 2012.
  66. Skaggs (2), pg. 121.
  67. Hickey, pg.139.
  68. Personal communication from Dr. Skaggs to the author, 7 March 2012.
  69. Dillon, pps. 214-215.
  70. The Historical Marker Database, "Oliver Hazard Perry Marker." Accessed 23 February 2012.
  1. www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=48630
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