Command of Lake Erie Coveted

WHO shall be masters of Lake Erie? Was a question which the belligerents tried to solve in the summer and early autumn of 1813. Our government had not listened to the proposition of General Hull early in 1812, to construct a naval force on that lake, but its wisdom was made manifest before the close of that year.

Captain Oliver Hazard Perry, a zealous young naval officer of Rhode Island, who was in command of flotilla of gun-boats on the Newport station, offered his services for the lakes, and early in February, 1813, a letter to him from Commodore Chauncey, said: "You are the very person I want for a particular service, in which you may gain reputation for yourself and honor for your country." That service was the command of a naval force on Lake Erie; and on the 17th of February, Perry received orders from the Secretary of the Navy to report to Chauncey with all possible dispatch, and to take with him to Sackett's Harbor all of the best men of the flotilla at Newport. He sent them forward at once in companies of fifty under sailing-masters Almy, Champlin and Taylor, and followed them in a sleigh. He met Chauncey at Albany, and the journeyed together in a sleigh through the dark wilderness to Sackett's Harbor. A fortnight afterward (March, 1813,) Perry went to Presque Isle (now Erie, Pa.,) to hasten the construction and equipment of a little navy there, to co-operate with General Harrison for the recovery of Michigan.

Four vessels were speedily built at Erie, and five others were taken to that sheltered harbor from Black Rock, below Buffalo, where Henry Eckford had fashioned merchant-vessels into warriors. The little fleet of nine vessels were all ready at Erie early in July, and the flag-ship was named the Lawrence, in compliment to the gallant commander of the Chesapeake, who had just given his life to his country. But men and supplies were wanting, and Perry had to wait weeks, in great impatience, before he could get out on the lake to meet a British squadron that was cruising there under Commodore Barclay. That squadron seriously meanced the fleet at Presque Isle, while Perry chafed under compulsory idleness. Late in July he wrote to Chauncey: "For God's sake, and yours and mine, send me men and officers, and I will have them all (the British vessels)in a day or two. Our sails are bent, provisions on board, and in fact everything is ready. Barclay has been bearding me for several days; I long to be at him. Think of my situation; the enemy in sight, the vessels under my command more than sufficient and ready to make sail, and yet obliged to bite my fingers with vexation for want of men."

Meanwhile the tardy government and the stay-at-home citizens were calling loudly upon Perry and Harrison to "do something," and the former, fretted by these implied complaints, having been reinforced by about one hundred men under Captain Elliott, went out upon the lake with his little fleet early in August, before he was fairly prepared for vigorous combat. He determined, to report to Harrison that he was ready for co-operation with him, and on the 17th day of August, when off Sandusky Bay, he fired signal guns according to agreement. Late on the evening of the 19th, Harrison and his suite arrived in boats and went on board the Lawrence, where arrangements were made for the fall campaign in that quarter. Harrison had then about eight thousand militia, regulars and Indians, at camp Seneca, a little more than twenty miles from the lake. While he was waiting for Harrison to prepare his army for transportation to malden, Perry cruised about the lake. Then he lay quietly at anchor in Put-in-Bay for a few days. On a bright and beautiful morning, the 10th of September, the sentinel watching in the maintop of the Lawrence, cried "Sail ho!" It announced the appearance of the British fleet, clearly seen in the northwestern horizon.

The sentinel's cry was followed by signals from the Lawrence to the rest of the fleet: "Enemy in sight. Get under way;" and the shout of the boatswains, "All hands up anchor, ahoy!" Perry's nine vessels were the brigs Lawrence, 20; Niagara, 20; Caledonia, 3. Schooners Ariel, 4; Scorpion, 2, and two swivels; Tigris, I; Porcupine, I; and sloop Trippe, I; in all fifty-four carriage-guns and two swivels. Barclay's fleet consisted of the flag-ship Detroit, the Queen Charlotte, Lady Prevost, Hunter, Little Belt, and Chippewa, carrying 64 carriage-guns, 2 swivels, and 4 howitzers. At the masthead of the Lawrence, Perry displayed a blue banner, with the reported last words of Captain Lawrence, "Don't give up the ship!" displayed upon it in large white letters.