The Land We Live In Part 10

[1] In the famous sea-fight between the American frigate United States and the British frigate Macedonian several American seamen on the British vessel, through their spokesman, John Card, who was described by one of his s.h.i.+pmates as being "as brave a seamen as ever trod a plank," frankly told Captain Garden their objections to fighting the American flag. The British commander savagely ordered them back to their quarters, threatening to shoot them if they again made the request. Half an hour later Jack Card was stretched out on the Macedonian's deck weltering in his blood, slain by a shot from his countrymen.--_Maclay's History of the United States Navy, D.

Appleton & Co._

Thousands of American seamen were thus impressed, while American vessels were seized by British cruisers, taken to port and unloaded and searched for contraband of war. The Leopard-Chesapeake affair was a crowning outrage on the part of the British, and had it not been promptly disavowed by the government at London, war would have been declared in 1807 instead of 1812. The Chesapeake, an American frigate of thirty-six guns, commanded by Captain James Barren, was hailed by the English fifty-gun frigate, Leopard, Captain Humphreys, in the open sea. The latter sent a lieutenant on board the Chesapeake, who handed to Captain Barren an order signed by the British Vice-Admiral Berkeley, directing all commanders in Berkeley's squadron to board the Chesapeake wherever found on the high seas, and search the vessel for deserters. Captain Barren's s.h.i.+p was utterly unprepared for battle, but he gave orders to clear tor action. So shameful was the lack of preparation on the Chesapeake that not a gun could be discharged until Lieutenant William Henry Allen seized a live coal from the galley fire with his fingers and sent a shot in response to repeated broadsides from the Leopard. The Chesapeake hauled down her flag after losing three killed and eighteen wounded. The British then boarded the vessel and carried off four of the crew, who were claimed as British deserters, although they all a.s.serted to the last that they were American citizens. One of these men, Jenkin Ratford or John Wilson, was hanged at the yard-arm of the British man-of-war Halifax. The other three were sentenced each to receive five hundred lashes, but the sentences were not carried out, and two of them, the third having died, were returned on board the Chesapeake. Some indemnity was paid and the British government recalled Vice-Admiral Berkeley.

The British continued to impress Americans into their service, and to annoy American s.h.i.+pping, and the American temper was gradually becoming inflamed under repeated provocations. Nevertheless there was a powerful sentiment opposed to war in the State of New York and in New England, and the people generally hesitated to believe that war would be declared. In 1811 the American frigate President avenged in some degree the Leopard outrage by severely chastising the British twenty-two-gun s.h.i.+p Little Belt, which lost eleven killed and twenty-one wounded in the encounter.

The Little Belt appears to have fired the first shot. War was at length declared by Congress, and proclaimed by President James Madison, June 18, 1812.

The news of war with Great Britain was carried, to New York by a special courier, and American merchants at once sent out a swift sailing vessel to warn American merchantmen in the ports of Northern Europe of the new danger that threatened them. By this warning many American vessels were saved from capture. Very different in result, although presumably not in intent, was the warning sent by John Jacob Astor, of New York, to his agent across the border. Mr. Astor, upon receiving the news from Was.h.i.+ngton, at once dispatched a messenger by swiftest express, to Queenstown, Canada, with the view of protecting as speedily as possible Mr. Astor's fur-trading interests. The messenger sped through the settlements of western New York, by farms and villages calmly reposing in the confidence of peace, and without saying a word of his momentous secret, he crossed the Niagara River with his master's message. The recipient of that message was a British subject, and felt bound by his allegiance to communicate it to the authorities. The following morning the people of Buffalo were surprised to see the Canadians descend upon their harbor and seize the s.h.i.+pping within reach.

Hostilities were opened promptly on land and sea. The American navy consisted only of seventeen vessels, 442 guns and 5025 men, while that of Great Britain included 1048 vessels, 27,800 guns and 151,572 men. It is no wonder that the American people hesitated to send forth their men-of-war against such tremendous odds, even although England's navy was largely engaged in the tremendous conflict with France, or rather in keeping Napoleon cribbed and cabined within his continental boundaries; and it is no wonder that British naval officers a.s.sumed to regard with contempt the fir-built frigates which bore the Stars and Stripes. The defeat and capture of the British frigate Guerriere, forty-nine guns, Captain Dacres, by the American frigate Const.i.tution, fifty-five guns, Captain Isaac Hull, made British contempt give place to surprise. In this naval battle the Americans proved their superiority in rapidity and accuracy of fire, and it is perhaps needless to say that they showed themselves fully the equals of the British in bravery. It is pleasant to read in the official report of Captain Dacres the following tribute to his generous foe: "I feel it my duty to state that the conduct of Captain Hull and his officers to our men has been that of a brave enemy, the greatest care being taken to prevent our men losing the smallest trifle, and the greatest attention being paid to the wounded." The Guerriere lost her second lieutenant, Henry Ready, and fourteen seamen killed, and Captain Dacres, First Lieutenant Kent, Sailing Master Scott, two master's mates, one mids.h.i.+pman and fifty-seven sailors were wounded, six of the wounded afterward dying. The Const.i.tution lost her first lieutenant of marines, William Sharp Bush, and six seamen killed, and her first lieutenant, Charles Morris, her sailing master, four seamen and one marine were wounded. Thus resulted the first naval combat between British and American built men-of-war.[2]

[2] The Const.i.tution may still be seen in the Navy Yard at Portsmouth, N. H. The following famous poem, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, saved the grand old vessel from destruction in 1833:

"Ay, tear the tattered ensign down!

Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky; Beneath it rung the battle-shout, And burst the cannon's roar-- The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more.

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, Where knelt the vanquished foe, When winds were hurrying o'er the flood And waves were white below, No more shall feel the victor's tread, Or know the conquered knee-- The harpies of the sh.o.r.e shall pluck The eagle of the sea!

Oh, better that her shattered hulk Should sink beneath the wave; Her thunders shook the mighty deep.

And there should be her grave; Nail to the mast her holy flag, Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the G.o.d of storm The lightning and the gale!"

For rapid and accurate firing and destructive effect thereof upon the enemy the records of naval warfare probably offer nothing to surpa.s.s the conduct of the American frigate United States, fifty-four guns, Captain Decatur, in battle with the British frigate Macedonian, forty-nine guns, Captain Garden. "The firing from the American frigate at close quarters was terrific. Her cannon were handled with such rapidity that there seemed to be one continuous flash from her broadside, and several times Captain Garden and his officers believed her to be on fire. * * * Her firing was so rapid that 'in a few minutes she was enveloped in a cloud of smoke which from the Macedonian's quarter-deck appeared like a huge cloud rolling along the water, illuminated by lurid flashes of lightning, and emitting a continuous roar of thunder.' But the unceasing storm of round shot, grape and canister, and the occasional glimpse of the Stars and Stripes floating above the clouds of smoke, forcibly dispelled the illusion, and showed the Englishmen that they were dealing with an enemy who knew how to strike and who struck hard. * * * 'Grapeshot and canister were pouring through our port holes like leaden hail; the large shot came against the s.h.i.+p's side, shaking her to the very keel, and pa.s.sing through her timbers and scattering terrific splinters, which did more appalling work than the shot itself. A constant stream of wounded men were being hurried to the c.o.c.kpit from all quarters of the s.h.i.+p.' And still the American frigate kept up her merciless cannonading. As the breeze occasionally made a rent in the smoke her officers could be seen walking around her quarter-deck calmly directing the work of destruction, while her gun-crews were visible through the open ports deliberately loading and aiming their pieces."[3] The action had lasted about an hour and a half, when the Macedonian struck. The United States, lost five men killed and seven wounded; the Macedonian lost thirty-six killed and sixty-eight wounded.

[3] From statements of witnesses on the Macedonian, in Maclay's "History of the United States Navy."

The next naval victory was won by Captain William Bainbridge, this time in command of the Const.i.tution, forty-four guns, over the British thirty-eight-gun frigate Java, Captain Henry Lambert. The battle began at 2.40 p. m., and at 4.05 p. m., the British frigate was "an unmanageable wreck." The Java at length surrendered, having lost sixty killed, besides one hundred and one wounded, while the loss of the Const.i.tution was nine killed and twenty-five wounded. Both commanders were wounded, the British captain mortally, and there was a touching scene when Captain Bainbridge, supported by his officers to the bedside of the dying Lambert, gave back to the latter his sword.

The British press foamed almost deliriously over these disasters to their navy, which robbed of half its luxury the imminent downfall of Napoleon.

The London "Times" could hardly find words to express its emotion over the fact that five hundred merchantmen and three frigates; had been captured in seven months by the Americans. An attempt was made to explain the repeated and astounding defeats on the ocean by the plea that the American frigates were almost s.h.i.+ps of the line in disguise, and that their superior size and armament carried an unfair advantage. The same plea could not be offered in explanation of the victories won by American sloops, in the case of the American Hornet and British Peac.o.c.k, of about equal strength, while the American Wasp was considerably inferior in guns and weight of metal to the British Frolic. Master-Commandant James Lawrence, of the Hornet, captured the Peac.o.c.k in eleven minutes from the beginning of the action, the American guns being fired so rapidly that buckets of water were constantly dashed on them to keep them cool. A Halifax paper said that "a vessel moored for the purpose of experiment could not have been sunk sooner. It will not do for our vessels to fight theirs single-handed." The American eighteen-gun sloop-of-war Wasp, Master-Commandant Jacob Jones, had a longer fight with the British brig-of-war Frolic, twenty-two guns, Captain Thomas Whinyates. The action lasted forty-three minutes from the first broadside, and the Frolic was taken by boarding. The Wasp had five killed and five wounded, and the Frolic fifteen killed and forty-seven wounded. The fact is, it was not the number but the handling of the guns that won American victories.

The capture of the American forty-nine-gun frigate Chesapeake, Captain James Lawrence, by the British fifty-two-gun frigate Shannon, Captain Philip Bowes Vere Broke, consoled the English in some degree for their losses, and the very exultation with which the news was received in Great Britain showed the high estimate which the mistress of the seas had formed of the American navy from previous experience during the war.

It is but just to the gallant Lawrence to say that he had no fair opportunity to prepare for battle, that he had the poorest crew--largely Portuguese and other riff-raff--ever put on board an American man-of-war, and that with a crew such as Hull or Decatur or Bainbridge had commanded, or that he had himself commanded on the Hornet, he might have recorded a victory instead of losing his s.h.i.+p and his life. At the same time it must also be admitted that Captain Broke was a superb naval officer, and that his victory was chiefly due to the perfect discipline and devotion of his men, with whom he was thoroughly acquainted, whereas Lawrence had been but a few days in command of the Chesapeake. When mortally wounded and carried below, Lawrence cried: "Keep the guns going!" "Fight her till she strikes or sinks!" and his last words were--"Don't give up the s.h.i.+p!" The British boarded the Chesapeake, after a brief cannonading. The Americans on board made a desperate resistance, and it is a question whether there was any formal surrender. The Chesapeake lost forty-seven killed and ninety-nine wounded, and of the latter fourteen afterward died. The Shannon lost twenty-four killed and fifty-nine wounded. There could hardly have been greater joy in England over a Peninsular victory.

Parliament acclaimed, the guns of the Tower thundered, and Captain Broke was made a baronet and a Knight Commander of the Bath. America keenly felt the defeat, but honored the heroic dead, and a gold medal was voted to the nearest male descendant of Captain Lawrence.

CHAPTER XXV.

The War on Land--Tec.u.mseh's Indian Confederacy--Harrison at Tippecanoe --General Hull and General Brock--A Fatal Armistice--Surrender of Detroit--English Masters of Michigan--General Harrison Takes Command in the Northwest--Harrison's Answer to Proctor--"He Will Never Have This Post Surrendered"--Crogan's Brave Defence--The British Retreat--War on the Niagara Frontier--Battle of Queenstown--Death of Brock--Colonel Winfield Scott and the English Doctrine of Perpetual Allegiance.

The sea victories were a fortunate offset to American disasters on land.

With the aid of the great Indian chieftain Tec.u.mseh, the British set out to conquer the Northwest. Tec.u.mseh, chief of the Shawaneese, was probably the ablest Indian that the white man had ever met. He resolved early in life to make a final stand against the progress of the palefaces. His scheme was at first not of a warlike nature, for he began with a secret council of representative Indians about the year 1806, the object of which was to form an Indian confederacy to prevent the further sale of lands to the United States, except by consent of the confederacy, which was to include the entire Indian population of the Northwest. Thus the American Union was to be met by an Indian union. Tec.u.mseh had a brother, known in history as "The Prophet," who visited the various tribes and brought the influence of superst.i.tion to bear in favor of Tec.u.mseh's projects. Governor William Henry Harrison, whose Territory of Indiana included the present States of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, viewed Tec.u.mseh's operations with alarm, although a.s.sured by that chieftain that his intentions were peaceful. In order to remove any just ground for discontent Governor Harrison offered to restore to the Indians any lands that had not been fairly purchased. Tec.u.mseh met Governor Harrison at Vincennes, and recited the old story of Indian wrongs. After complaining of white duplicity in obtaining sales of land, and endeavoring to sow strife between the tribes, Tec.u.mseh added: "How can we have confidence in the white people? When Jesus Christ came upon the earth, you killed him and nailed him on a cross. You thought he was dead, but you were mistaken. Everything I have said to you is the truth. The Great Spirit has inspired me." The first interview ended in great excitement, but a second meeting, on the following day, was more decorous in character. Nothing came of these discussions, as Tec.u.mseh's demand for the restoration of all Indian lands purchased from single tribes could obviously not be granted. Hostilities followed, and the battle of Tippecanoe was fought during the absence of Tec.u.mseh, who on going South to visit the Cherokees and other tribes had given strict orders to his brother, the Prophet, not to attack the Americans. The Indians attempted a surprise after midnight, November 7, 1811. They fought furiously, and if Harrison had been a Braddock, the story of Duquesne might have been repeated. But Harrison understood frontier warfare, and he directed his men so skillfully, although many of them had never been under fire before, that the Indians were at length repulsed. One of Harrison's orders, which probably saved his army, was to extinguish the campfires, so that white and Indian fought in the darkness on equal terms. The American loss was thirty-seven killed and 151 wounded, and that of the Indians somewhat smaller. In effect Tippecanoe was a decisive victory for the Americans, and broke the spell in which Tec.u.mseh and the Prophet had held the tribes.

The War of 1812 revived the hopes of the great Indian chieftain, and with the rank of brigadier-general in the British army he set about to a.s.sist General Isaac Brock, the Governor of Upper Canada, in the task of wresting the Northwest from the Americans. General William Hull, an uncle of Captain Isaac Hull, the commander of the Const.i.tution, was Governor of the Territory of Michigan, which had been organized in 1805 and now contained about 5000 inhabitants. To General Hull was given the command of the forces intended for defensive and offensive operations on the Upper Lakes. A small garrison of United States troops was stationed at Michilimacinac and one at Chicago, which were the outposts of civilization. The English near Detroit appear to have been aware of the declaration of war before the news reached General Hull, and while the latter was moving with an extreme caution excusable only on the ground of age, Brock swiftly laid out and as swiftly entered upon an aggressive campaign. The American outposts were captured by the British and Indians, and the garrison of Fort Dearborn--Chicago--was cruelly ma.s.sacred. On this occasion Mr. John Kinzie, the first settler at Chicago, who as a trader was much liked by the Indians, did n.o.ble service, with his excellent wife, in saving the lives of the soldiers' families. Mrs.

Heald, the wife of Captain Heald, was ransomed for ten bottles of whiskey and a mule, just as an Indian was about to scalp her.

At this critical juncture General Hull was weakened, and the British forces opposed to him were encouraged by the news that General Henry Dearborn, commander of the American troops in the Northern Department, instead of invading Canada from the Niagara frontier, in obedience to his instructions, had agreed to a provisional armistice with Sir George Prevost, the governor-general of Canada. The ground for the armistice was that England had revoked the orders in council obnoxious to Americans, five days after the declaration of war by the United States, and that intended peace negotiations would therefore have in all probability a happy result. As a matter of fact England had not yielded, and had no intention, as it proved, of yielding on the question of impressment, which was the princ.i.p.al American grievance. But even if England had surrendered every point it was an outrageous a.s.sumption on the part of General Dearborn to depart from the line of military instructions and military duty upon any representation foreign to that duty. By his error in this regard General Dearborn injured the American cause more than a severe defeat would have done, leaving as he did General Hull and his handful of men, who were not included in the armistice, to bear the brunt of British hostility. The government at Was.h.i.+ngton disapproved General Dearborn's course, and the armistice was cancelled, but not in time to prevent the loss of Detroit.

General Hull had only eight hundred men in Detroit when General Brock attacked the place by land and water, with a much more numerous force of British and Indians, a.s.sisted by s.h.i.+ps of war. It is often a.s.serted that General Hull surrendered the place without serious defence. This is not true. In addition to the official statements of both sides, and General Hull's own vindication, the journal of an Ohio soldier named Claypool who was in the American ranks at the time, shows that the Americans returned the British fire vigorously during August 15, and for several hours on the following day, when General Hull, in view of the overwhelming force opposed to him, capitulated. General Hull was afterward tried by court-martial and sentenced to death, but the sentence was not carried out, the United States escaping a stain like that which attaches to England for the fate of Admiral Byng. Hull had proven during the Revolution that he was no coward. Whatever may have been his errors of judgment before the surrender, at the time of the surrender Detroit was indefensible.

The English were now masters of Michigan Territory, and the western forests were alive with Indians on the warpath. Fort Wayne was besieged, and Captain Zachary Taylor bravely defended Fort Harrison. General Harrison, appointed to the command of the Northwestern army, promptly relieved both posts, and the government ordered that ten thousand men should be raised to recover Detroit and invade Canada. General James Winchester, in command of the advance corps of Harrison's forces, imprudently engaged in conflict with a much more numerous body of British at Frenchtown, on the River Raisin. Nearly all his troops, numbering about eight hundred, were killed or captured, and some of the captives were ma.s.sacred. General Winchester himself was taken prisoner. Soon afterward the British General Proctor issued a proclamation requiring the citizens of Michigan to take the oath of allegiance to the British crown, or leave the Territory. The American residents in Detroit, under the terms of the capitulation, remained undisturbed in their homes, but their hearts were continually wrung by the spectacle of cruelties practiced by Indian allies of the British upon American captives. Many families parted with all but necessary wearing apparel to redeem the sufferers, and private houses were turned into hospitals for their relief. Mr. Kinzie, of Chicago, who was now a paroled prisoner in Detroit, was foremost in this work of patriotism and humanity.

The defeat at the River Raisin was a hard blow to General Harrison, especially as the troops to make up his army of ten thousand men were slow in arriving. He did not lose courage, however, and when General Proctor sent an imperious demand for the surrender of Fort Meigs, Harrison answered: "He will never have this post surrendered to him upon any terms. Should it fall into his hands, it will be in a manner calculated to do him more honor and to give him larger claims upon the grat.i.tude of his government than any capitulation could possibly do."

"There will be none of us left to kill" was the reply of Captain Crogan at Fort Stephenson, when Proctor's messenger menaced him with Indian vengeance, should he fail to surrender. Harrison, reinforced by General Clay Green, from Kentucky, compelled the besiegers to withdraw, and the heroic Crogan mowed down with one discharge of his single cannon more than fifty of the a.s.sailants who were advancing to carry his fort by storm. Hardly had the remainder fled when the Americans let down pails of water from the wall of the fort for the relief of their wounded enemies.

The formation of an army for the invasion of Canada now went forward in earnest, while the retreat of the British shook the confidence of Tec.u.mseh and his Indian followers in England's ability to protect them against the Americans.

The Niagara frontier was the scene of desultory warfare, with varied fortune for both sides. The battle of Queenstown, October 13, 1812, although it resulted in the defeat and capture of the Americans engaged and witnessed a pitiable exhibition of cowardice on the part of militiamen who refused to cross the river to the aid of their countrymen, was attended by a loss for the Canadians that more than counterbalanced their victory, in the death of Major-General Isaac Brock, whose well-deserved monument is a conspicuous feature of the Niagara landscape.

Among the Americans who surrendered on this occasion was Colonel Winfield Scott, who, while himself a prisoner, took a resolute and memorable stand against the British claim that certain Irishmen captured in the American ranks should be sent to England to be tried for treason. The Irishmen, twenty-three in number, were put in irons and deported to England, but in the following May Colonel Scott, after the battle of Fort George, selected twenty-three British prisoners, not of Irish birth, to be dealt with as the British authorities should deal with the Irish-Americans. The latter were finally released and returned to America, and the British doctrine of perpetual allegiance was shattered without treaty or diplomacy.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Battle of Lake Erie--Master-Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry--Building a Fleet--Perry on the Lake--A Duel of Long Guns--Fearful Slaughter on the Lawrence--"Can Any of the Wounded Pull a Rope?"--At Close Quarters-- Victory in Fifteen Minutes--"We Have Met the Enemy and They Are Ours"

--The Father of Chicago Sees the End of the Battle--The British Evacuate Detroit--General Harrison's Victory at the Thames--Tec.u.mseh Slain--The Struggle in the Southwest--Andrew Jackson in Command--Battle of Horseshoe Bend--The Ess.e.x in the Pacific--Defeat and Victory on the Ocean--Captain Porter's Brave Defence--Burning of Newark--Ma.s.sacre at Fort Niagara--Chippewa and Lundy's Lane--Devastation by the British Fleet--British Vandalism at Was.h.i.+ngton--Attempt on Baltimore--"The Star Spangled Banner."

And now came the struggle for the control of Lake Erie--a struggle on which depended whether England should succeed in preventing the western growth of the United States, or be driven forever from the soil which Americans claimed as their own. Master-Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry was but twenty-six years of age when the Navy Department called him from his pleasant home at Newport and sent him to command a navy summoned from the primeval forests of the Northwest. Young as he was Perry had seen service in the wars with France and Tripoli, and he had requested the Navy Department at the commencement of the conflict with England to send him where he could meet the enemies of his country. Perry arrived at Erie, then known as Presque Isle, in March, 1813. Sailing Master Daniel Dobbins and Noah Brown, a s.h.i.+pwright from New York, were busily at work on the new fleet. Two brigs, the Niagara and the Lawrence, were built with white and black oak and chestnut frames, the outside planking being of oak and the decks of pine. Two gunboats were newly planked up, and work on a schooner was just begun. The vessels had to be vigilantly guarded against attack by the British, who were fully aware of the work being done. The capture of Fort George left the Niagara River open, and several American vessels which had been unable before to pa.s.s the Canadian batteries were now, with great exertion, drawn into the lake. These were the brig Caledonia, the schooners Somers, Tigress and Ohio, and the sloop Trippe.

An English squadron set out to intercept the new arrivals, but Perry succeeded in gaining the harbor of Erie before the enemy made their appearance.

The American s.h.i.+ps were ready for sea on July 10, but officers and sailors were lacking, and it was not until about the close of the month that Perry had three hundred men to man his ten vessels. While the British squadron, under Captain Robert Heriot Barclay maintained a vigorous blockade, Perry found that his new brigs could not cross the bar without landing their guns and being blocked up on scows. Commander Barclay, thinking that Perry could not move, made a visit of ceremony with his squadron to Port Dover, on the Canadian side. During Barclay's absence Perry got the Lawrence and Niagara over the bar, and the British commander was astonished, when he returned on the morning of August 5, to see the American fleet riding at anchor, and ready for battle. Barclay wished to delay the naval combat until after the completion at Malden of a ten-gun s.h.i.+p called the Detroit, which was to be added to his force, and he therefore put into that harbor.[1] Perry improved the delay to exercise his crews, largely made up of soldiers, in seamans.h.i.+p.

[1] Malden, on the Detroit River, eighteen miles below the city of Detroit, is now known as Amherstburg.

It was not until September 10 that the British squadron came out to give battle. Master-Commandant Perry had nine vessels mounting fifty-four guns, with 1536 pounds of metal. The British squadron consisted of six vessels, mounting sixty-three guns, with a total weight of 852 pounds.

The American vessels were manned by 490 men and the British by 502 men and boys. In discipline, training and physical condition, however, the difference of crews was much more in favor of the British than the numbers indicate. The brig Lawrence was Perry's flags.h.i.+p; Barclay's pennant flew on the Detroit. As the American vessels stood out to sea Perry hoisted a large blue flag with the words of the dying Lawrence in white muslin--"Don't give up the s.h.i.+p!" He prepared for defeat as well as for victory, by gathering all his important papers in a package weighted and ready to be thrown overboard in the event of disaster. It may be said that Perry fought the earlier part of the battle almost alone, a slow-sailing brig, the Caledonia, being in line ahead of the Niagara, and Perry, having given orders that the vessels should preserve their stations.

In the duel of long guns the British had a decided advantage and their fire being concentrated on the Lawrence that vessel soon became a wreck.

Of one hundred and three men fit for duty on board the American flags.h.i.+p, eighty-three were killed or wounded. These figures sufficiently indicate the carnage; but Perry fought on. "Can any of the wounded pull a rope?"

cried Perry, and mangled men crawled out to help in training the guns.

For nearly three hours the Lawrence with the schooners Ariel and Scorpion, fought the British fleet. Then Master-Commandant Elliott, of the Niagara, fearing Perry had been killed, undertook, notwithstanding Perry's previous orders, to go out of line to the help of the Lawrence.

Perry then changed his flag to the Niagara, leaving orders with First Lieutenant John J. Yarnall, of the Lawrence, to hold out to the last.

Perry at once sent Master-Commandant Elliott in a boat to bring up the schooners, and meantime Lieutenant Yarnall, deciding that further resistance would mean the destruction of all on board, lowered the flag on the Lawrence. The English thought they were already victors, and gave three cheers, but the Lawrence drifted out of range before they could take possession of her, and the Stars and Stripes were raised again over her blood-stained decks.

The battle had in truth only begun, but was soon to end. The remainder of the American squadron closed in on the English vessels, raking them fore and aft. The English officers and men were swept from their decks by the hurricane of iron. It was the United States and the Macedonian on a smaller scale. The American cannonade at close quarters was so fast and furious that the British s.h.i.+ps were soon in a condition that left no choice save between sinking or surrender. In fifteen minutes after the Americans closed in a British officer waved a white hand-kerchief. The enemy had struck. Two of the English vessels, the Chippewa and the Little Belt, sought to escape to Maiden, but were pursued and captured by the sloop Trippe and the Scorpion.[2] Perry proceeded to the Lawrence, and on the decks of his flags.h.i.+p, still slippery with blood, he received the surrender of the English officers. Perry wrote with a pencil on the back of an old letter his famous dispatch: "We have met the enemy, and they are ours--two s.h.i.+ps, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop." The Americans lost in the battle twenty-seven killed and ninety-six wounded, of whom twenty-two were killed and sixty-one wounded on board the Lawrence. Twelve of the American quarter-deck officers were killed. The British lost forty-one killed and ninety-four wounded, making a total of one hundred and thirty-five. Commander Barclay, one of Nelson's veterans, had lost an arm in a previous naval engagement. He gave his men an admirable example of courage, being twice wounded, once in the thigh and once in the shoulder, thus being deprived of the use of his remaining arm. Captain Finnis, of the Queen Charlotte, was mortally wounded, and died on the same evening.

[2] "At half past two, the wind springing up, Captain Elliott was enabled to bring his vessel, the Niagara, into close action. I immediately went on board of her, when he antic.i.p.ated my wish by volunteering to bring the schooners, which had been kept astern by the lightness of the wind, into close action. At forty-five minutes past two the signal was made for close action. The Niagara being very little injured I determined to pa.s.s through the enemy's line, bore up and pa.s.sed ahead of their two s.h.i.+ps and a brig, large schooner and sloop from the larboard side, at half pistol shot distance. The smaller vessels at this time having gotten within grape and canister distance, under the direction of Captain Elliott, and keeping up a well-directed fire, the two s.h.i.+ps, a brig and a schooner, surrendered, a schooner and a sloop making a vain attempt to escape."--_Perry's account of the battle._