HISTORY

September 10, 1813
Battle of Lake Erie

In 1812 the American fleet on Lake Erie was non-existent. The Royal Navy, on the other had, had a seventy gun fleet consisting of the Queen Charlotte, Detroit, Hunter, Provost, Nancy and Caledonia. This gave them uncontested control of the Lake, making American military operations difficult if not impossible. Had it not been for the genius of Daniel Dobbins, Michigan might well have become part of Canada.

What happened in Pennsylvania in late 1812 and early 1813 was nothing short of a miracle.

Proctor knew that he couldn't allow the Americans to build a fleet on Lake Erie and set about planning to attack any port where the Americans might start building one and destroying the ships before they could be launched. Dobbins knew this too and selected Presque Isle; a shallow, sandy, heavily wooded spit of land, it was a terrible harbor. . . but that was it best feature. Several times Proctor considered attacking the place and burning the ships, but he abandoned the plan as too risky and not worth the effort. Because Presque Isle is virtually land locked. It was a bit like building the entire American Atlantic fleet in Utah's Great Salt Lake.

But not only did Dobbins build the Ariel, Porcupine, Tigress, Scorpion, Niagara and the Lawrence, he did it with men that had never built large ships before. He completed the nearly impossible task of literally lifting the ships out of the harbor and into Lake Erie and turned them over to Commodore Hazard Perry to change the course of the war in the west.

Outgunned by the new America fleet, Commodore Barkley none the less engaged Perry's forces at 11:45AM at a place called Put-In-Bay. Looking to gain the advantage of the wind, Barkley's fleet cornered the Lawrence and virtually destroyed her by concentrating all their fire on this one ship. Still flying the famous "Don't Give Up The Ship" flag, Perry was forced to transfer his command to the Niagara. But with all her guns out of action and 4 out of every 5 members of her crew dead or wounded, giving up the ship was exactly what the survivors did; striking their colors.

What started out as a brilliant victory for the outgunned British fleet, now started to go very badly wrong. Seriously damaged by the heavy guns of the Lawrence, the Queen Charlotte and Detroit collided with each other trying to reposition themselves to take on the remaining ships of the American fleet. This allowed Perry to overtake the ships and rake their decks with gunfire. By 3PM the battle was over as all six of Barclay's ships struck their colors.

In less than a month after this battle, the British were forced to give up almost all their gains in the United States as well as a large portion of Upper Canada. Lake Erie would now remain in American hands for the duration of the war and the British would be cut off from a majority of their North American Native allies. In a sense, the Native Americans were defeated in a battle they had no participation in. The whole scene was summed up nicely by Perry's famous note to Gen. Harrison: "We have met the enemy and they are ours."