Notes

Introduction

1. Samuel R. Brown, Views on Lake Erie (Troy, N.Y.: Francis Adancourt, 1814), 68–71.

2. See Robert J. Dodge, Isolated Splendor: Put-in-Bay and South Bass Island (New York: Exposition Press, 1975); Thomas Huxley Langlois and Marina Holmes Langlois, South Bass Island and Islanders, Ohio State University, Franz Theodore Stone Laboratory Contribution No. 10 (Columbus: Ohio State University, 1948).

Chapter 1. Strategic Background

1. Message to Congress, 1 June 1813, William S. Dudley, ed., The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History, 2 vols. to date (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1985–92), 1:73–81.

2. Among the more distinguished studies concerned with the origins of the War of 1812 are Bradford Perkins, Prologue to War: England and the United States, 1805–1812 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961); Reginald Horsman, The War of 1812 (New York: Knopf, 1969); Horsman, The Causes of the War of 1812 (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1962); Julius W. Pratt, Expansionists of 1812 (1925; reprint, Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1957); R. H. Brown, The Republic in Peril: 1812 (1964; reprint, New York: Norton, 1971); J. Mackay Hitsman, The Incredible War of 1812: A Military History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965); Ronald L. Hatzenbuehler and Robert L. Ivie, Congress Declares War: Rhetoric, Leadership, and Partisanship in the Early Republic (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1983); J. C. A. Stagg, Mr. Madison’s War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American Republic, 1783–1830 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983); and Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson, Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).

3. Leonard D. White, The Jeffersonians: A Study in Administrative History, 1801–1829 (New York: Free Press, 1951), 211–23, 265–83; James A. Hutson, The Sinews of War: Army Logistics, 1775–1953 (Washington, D.C.: United States Army, 1966), 102–12; Edward K. Eckert, The Navy Department in the War of 1812 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1973).

4. Christopher McKee, A Gentlemanly and Honorable Profession: The Creation of the U.S. Naval Officer Corps, 1794–1815 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1991), 3–27.

5. Marvin A. Kreidberg and Merton G. Henry, History of Military Mobilization in the United States Army, 1775–1945, Department of the Army Pamphlet 20–212 (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1955), 23–59; John K. Mahon and Romana Danysh, Infantry—Part I: Regular Army, Army Lineage Series (Washington, D.C.: United States Army, 1972), 13–16; Theodore J. Crackel, Mr. Jefferson’s Army: Political and Social Reform of the Military Establishment, 1801–1809 (New York: New York University Press, 1987); Edward M. Coffman, The Old Army: Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784–1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 34–41. Few states called up their common militia units. Instead, most of the so-called militia units were volunteer outfits raised for a season or campaign. An analysis of prewar common militia units appears in Mark Pitcavage, “Ropes of Sand: Territorial Militias, 1801–1812,” Journal of the Early Republic 13 (Winter 1993): 481–500.

6. Revolutionary War veterans included James Wilkinson, William Hull, and Henry Dearborn; the Jeffersonian appointees following the expansion of 1808 included Alexander Smyth and James Winchester. None of these officers proved effective commanders of large military organizations. The volunteers provided the most competent senior army leadership in the last year of the war—Jacob Brown, William Henry Harrison, and Andrew Jackson. Among the junior officers in the regular army that emerged, one finds Winfield Scott and James Miller among the most exemplary.

7. Irving Brant, James Madison: Commander in Chief, 1812–1836 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1961), 39; Kenneth J. Hagan, This People’s Navy: The Making of American Sea Power (New York: Free Press, 1991), 77–78; Eckert, Navy Department, 18–64.

8. Clay to Thomas Bodley, 18 December 1813, Thomas F. Hopkins, ed., The Papers of Henry Clay, 10 vols. (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1959), 1:842.

9. Sinclair to John H. Cocke, 25 August 1813, John Hartwell Cocke Collection, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville (emphasis is Sinclair’s); Chauncey to William Jones, 5 November 1814, Navy Department, M 125, reel 40, RG 45, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

10. Brant, Madison, 45; Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 80.

11. Armstrong to William Eustis, 2 January 1812, E. Cruikshank, ed., The Documentary History of the Campaign upon the Niagara Frontier, 9 vols. (Welland, Ont.: Tribune Office, 1898–1908), 1:33 (hereafter cited as Niagara Frontier).

12. Armstrong to William Eustis, 2 January 1812, ibid., 31–33 (emphasis is Armstrong’s).

13. Hull to Eustis, 15 February 1811, Clarence E. Carter, ed., The Territorial Papers of the United States, vol. 10, The Territory of Michigan, 1805–1820 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1942), 341.

14. Hull to Eustis, 6 March 1812, E. A. Cruikshank, ed., Documents Relating to the Invasion of Canada and the Surrender of Detroit, 1812 (Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1912), 19–23 (hereafter cited as Surrender of Detroit). As will be seen, despite their strategic wisdom neither Hull nor Armstrong provided effective combat leadership during the War of 1812.

15. George F. G. Stanley, The War of 1812: Land Operations, Canadian War Museum Historical Publication No. 18 (Ottawa: National Museums of Canada, 1983), 49–51, 54–58.

16. Peter Burroughs, “Sir George Prevost,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 13 vols. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966–94), 5:693–98 (hereafter cited as DCB); Hitsman, Incredible War, 24–25; Stanley, War of 1812, 57–60.

17. Hitsman, Incredible War, 26, 36; Stanley, War of 1812, 51–54. For the internal problems of Upper Canada during the period, see George Sheppard, Plunder, Profit, and Paroles: A Social History of the War of 1812 in Upper Canada (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994).

18. Hitsman, Incredible War, 38–41; Stanley, War of 1812, 75–79. Of course there was the critical naval base at Halifax, Nova Scotia, which provided protection for the roots of the Canadian tree. But at no point in the war did the Americans contemplate seriously an attack against this Royal Navy bastion.

19. Robert S. Allen, His Majesty’s Indian Allies: British Indian Policy in the Defence of Canada, 1774–1815 (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1992), 86.

20. Dwight L. Smith, “A North American Neutral Indian Zone: Persistence of a British Idea,” Northwest Ohio Quarterly 61 (Spring 1989): 46–63.

21. The New American State Papers: Indian Affairs, 13 vols. (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1972), 4:163.

22. Brock to Prevost, 25 February, Col. Edward Baynes (Prevost’s adjutant) to Brock, 10 March 1812, Cruikshank, ed., Niagara Frontier, 44, 46. In a 24 December 1811 letter to Brock, Prevost had been reticent in the use of Indians (ibid., 27).

23. Reginald Horsman, Matthew Elliott: British Indian Agent (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1964). See also Allen, His Majesty’s Indian Allies, 88–122; Herbert C. W. Goltz, Jr., “The Indian Revival Religion and the Western District, 1805–1813,” in K. G. Pryke and L. L. Kulisek, eds., The Western District: Papers from the Western District Conference (Windsor, Ont.: Essex Historical Society, 1983), 18–32.

24. Capt. Andrew Gray to Prevost, 13 January 1812, Cruikshank, ed., Surrender of Detroit, 8–11 (emphasis in original). See also the “Memoranda on the Defensive Strength and Equipment of the North West Company,” ibid., 11–12, and Gray to Prevost, dated York, 29 January 1812, ibid., 14–15, where Captain Gray wrote that General Brock “perfectly concurs in the ideas” of Gray’s letter of the thirteenth and that “the General’s general Policy, and plan of Defence, agrees so exactly with the ideas I had formed.” For an indication of the intertwined, multicultural arrangements among fur traders, Indian agents, and Indians see the following biographical entries in the DCB: David R. Ferrell, “John Askin,” 5:37–39; John Clarke, “James (Jacques) Baby,” 6:21–22; Clarke, “François Baby,” 8:33–35; Robert S. Allen, “William Claus,” 6:151–53; James A. Clifton, “Billy Caldwell,” 7:132–33; Allen, “Robert Dickson,” 6:209–11; Carol Whitfield, “Alexander Grant,” 5:363–67; Fernand Oullet, “William McGillivray,” 6:454–57; Reginald Horsman, “Myerrah” (Walk-in-the-Water), 5:619––20; Carl F. Klinck, “John Norton,” 6:550–53; F. Murray Greenwood, “John Richardson” (1754–1831), 6:639–47; Daniel J. Brock, “John Richardson” (1796–1852), 8:743–48; Glen A. Steppler, “Charles Roberts,” 5:713–14; Clifton, “Sou-neh-hoo-way” (Splitlog), 7:821; Horsman, “Stayeghtha” (Roundhead), 5:774–75; Horsman, “Weyapiersenwah” (Blue Jacket), 5:852–53; Peter N. Moogk, “John Young,” 5:877–82. Colin G. Calloway explores the fur trader-Indian relationships in Crown and Calumet: British-Indian Relations, 1783–1815 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), 161–88, and in “Beyond the Vortex of Violence: Indian-White Relations in the Ohio Country, 1783–1815,” Northwest Ohio Quarterly 64 (Winter 1992): 16–26.

25. Brock to Prevost, 25 February 1812, Cruikshank, ed., Surrender of Detroit, 40–41.

26. W. A. B. Douglas, “The Anatomy of Naval Incompetence: The Provincial Marine of Upper Canada before 1813,” Ontario History 71 (March 1979): 3–26.

27. Lt. Col. A. H. Pye, “Report on the Provincial Marine of the Canadas,” 7 December 1811, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 1:268–70.

28. “Memoranda of General Brock on Plans for Defence of Canada,” ca. January 1812, Cruikshank, ed., Surrender of Detroit, 13. Hall replaced Commodore Alexander Grant (1727–1813). Provincial Marine lieutenants Thomas Barwis and Charles F. Rollette were to be sent to Amherstburg to command vessels there (ibid.). See also Gray to Prevost, 29 January 1812, ibid., 35–38; K. C. Pryke, “George B. Hall,” DCB, 6:308–10; and Carol Whitfield, “Alexander Grant,” ibid., 5:363–67.

29. The nomenclature of Fort Michilimackinac for the outpost on Mackinac Island (sometimes called Michilimackinac Island) will be used throughout. The names were used interchangeably in the early nineteenth century, but today the fort and the island on which it is located are known as Mackinac, while the restored French, and later British, fortification on the southern mainland shore of the Straits of Mackinac is called Fort Michilimackinac. Although today the pronunciation of the island and forts ends as though the last syllable were “naw” rather than “nac,” in the early nineteenth century the two pronunciations existed, with the latter appearing to be the more common.

30. Hull to Eustis, 15 February 1811, Carter, ed., Territorial Papers, 10:341.

31. Hamilton to Rodgers, 21 May, Rodgers to Hamilton, 3 June, Decatur to Hamilton, 8 June 1812, Dudley, ed., Naval War, 1:118–24.

32. Stagg, Mr. Madison’s War, 192–93, 197 n.

33. Meigs to Maj. Gen. John S. Gano, 6 April 1812, L. B. Hamlin, ed., “Selections from the Gano Papers,” Quarterly Publication of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, (January-June 1920), 15:53–54.

34. See various letters in ibid., 54–68; Stagg, Mr. Madison’s War, 194–98. The spelling of Findley is also done Findlay.

35. See especially Goltz, “Indian Revival Religion”; Goltz, “Tecumseh, The Prophet, and the Rise of the Northwest Indian Confederation” (Ph.D. diss., University of Western Ontario, 1973), 135–258; R. David Edmunds, Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership ([New York]: HarperCollins, 1984), 135–63; Allen, His Majesty’s Indian Allies, 110–18; George C. Chalou, “The Red Pawns Go to War: British-American Indian Relations, 1812–1815” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1971), 29–37; Gregory Evans Dowd, A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity, 1745–1815 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 123–47, 181–201.

36. Allen, His Majesty’s Indian Allies, 125–28, 224; Chalou, “Red Pawns Go to War,” 46–47, 72–75; Allen, “Robert Dickson,” DCB, 6:209–11; Allen, “William Claus,” DCB, 6:151–53.

37. On Dickson’s activities see Matthew Irwin to John Mason, 16 October 1812, Carter, ed., Territorial Papers, 10:411–15. See the estimates of Indian strength in Allen, His Majesty’s Indian Allies, 121–22, 219–21.

38. Allen, His Majesty’s Indian Allies, 128–30.

39. Goltz, “Tecumseh, The Prophet,” 296–319; Chalou, “Red Pawns Go to War,” 53–54.

40. R. David Edmunds, “Tecumseh’s Native Allies: Warriors Who Fought for the Crown,” in William Jeffrey Welsh and David Curtis Skaggs, eds., War on the Great Lakes: Essays Commemorating the 175th Anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1991), 56–67; Robert J. Surtees, “Indian Participation in the War of 1812: A Cartographic Approach,” in Pryke and Kulisek, eds., The Western District, 42–48; Chalou, “Red Pawns Go to War,” 56–64; Allen, His Majesty’s Indian Allies, 121–22. See also the following DCB entries: Clifton, “Billy Caldwell,” 7:132–33; Allen, “Robert Dickson,” 6:209–11; Horsman, “Myerrah” (Walk-in-the-Water), 5:619–20; Klinck, “John Norton,” 6:550–53; Clifton, “Sou-neh-hoo-way” (Splitlog), 7:821; Horsman, “Stayeghtha” (Roundhead), 5:774–75. For the various tribes involved see Edmund Jefferson Danziger, Jr., The Chippewas of Lake Superior (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1979), 60–67; C. A. Weslager, The Delaware Indians: A History (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1972), 333–47; R. David Edmunds, The Potawatomi: Keepers of the Fire (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978), 163–206.

41. B. F. Stickney to Governor Hull, 25 May 1812, Gayle Thornbrough, ed., Letter Book of the Indian Agency at Fort Wayne, 1809–1815, Indiana Historical Society Publications, vol. 21 (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1961), 125–29; Attwater to Eustis, 21 January 1812, Carter, ed., Territorial Papers, 10:376–77; Chalou, “Red Pawns Go to War,” 58.

42. Stickney to Eustis, 25 May 1812, Stickney to Harrison, 29 May, Stickney to the Delaware Chiefs, 5 June, Stickney to Eustis, 7 June, Thornbrough, ed., Letter Book, 130–33, 135–38; Chalou, “Red Pawns Go to War,” 58–61.

43. Stickney to Hull, 8 June 1812, Thornbrough, ed., Letter Book, 139–41.

44. Stickney to Capt. Nathan Heald, Fort Wayne, 6 July 1812, ibid., 153.

45. Robert B. McAfee, History of the Late War in the Western Country (Lexington, Ky.: Worsley and Smith, 1816), 51–54.

46. Harrison’s failure to utilize Hull’s Trace was roundly criticized by Secretary of War John Armstrong in his Notices of the War of 1812, 2 vols. (New York: George Dearborn, 1836), 1:86–90. However, Armstrong was unfamiliar with the terrain.

47. Hull to Eustis, 24 June, Hull to Eustis, 26 June 1812, Cruikshank, ed., Surrender of Detroit, 36, 38–39; McAfee, History of the Late War, 54–56. McAfee believed Hull knew war was declared, but Hull said the letter he received did not announce the formal declaration of war. See Alec Gilpin, The War of 1812 in the Old Northwest (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1958), 47–54.

48. Hull to Eustis, 7 July 1812, Cruikshank, ed., Surrender of Detroit, 42–43; McAfee, History of the Late War, 56–57; Stanley, War of 1812, 6, 91, 93. The exact name of the vessel varies; some sources call her the Cuyahoga Packet, others the Cayauga.

49. McAfee, History of the Late War, 57–58.

50. Hamilton to Chauncey, 11 September 1812, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 1:308–9, provides an estimate of the situation after the declaration of war and after the Adams had been captured by the British and renamed the Detroit.

51. Tompkins to John Bullis, 15 July 1812, ibid., 282–83.

52. Prevost to Earl Bathurst, 24 August 1812, Cruikshank, ed., Surrender of Detroit, 179.

53. McAfee, History of the Late War, 65.

54. The discussion in the preceding paragraphs is largely based on ibid., 59–82, and Stanley, War of 1812, 93–106.

55. Observations by Toussaint Pothier on Michilimackinac, Cruikshank, ed., Surrender of Detroit, 64–69; Allen, His Majesty’s Indian Allies, 214–17. No better indication of the rapidity with which the Canadian boatmen traversed the waters of the region is to be found than in one observer’s comment that a thousand-mile round trip to request support was made in nine days.

56. Matthew Irwin to John Mason, 16 October 1812, Carter, ed., Territorial Papers, 10:411–15; Articles of Capitulation of Michilimackinac, Roberts to Colonel Baynes, 17 July, Roberts to Brock, 17 July, Askin to Claus, 18 July, Hanks to Hull, 4 August 1812, Cruikshank, ed., Surrender of Detroit, 64–69; Brian Leigh Dunnigan, The British Army at Mackinac, 1812–1815, Reports in Mackinac History and Archaeology No. 7 ([Mackinac Island, Mich.]: Mackinac Island State Park Commission, 1980), 5–15, provides the best description of the British-Indian attack; Allen, His Majesty’s Indian Allies, 127–29; Allen, “Robert Dickson,” DCB, 6:209–11; Steppler, “Charles Roberts,” ibid., 5:713–14. The Caledonia, as we shall see, will eventually end up in the American squadron at the battle of Lake Erie.

57. Observations by . . . Pothier, Cruikshank, ed., Surrender of Detroit, 214–17. Allen, His Majesty’s Indian Allies, 128–32, recounts the wavering of many Indians between neutrality and British support prior to the capture of Mackinac Island.

58. Return of Prizes Made by His Majesty’s Vessels on Lake Erie, &c., Cruikshank, ed., Surrender of Detroit, 232.

59. Extract from an Original Journal of Charles Askin, Cruikshank, ed., Surrender of Detroit, 235–40; Stanley, War of 1812, 104–6; W. H. Merritt, “Journal of Events Principally on the Detroit and Niagara Frontiers,” in William Wood, ed., Select British Documents of the Canadian War of 1812, Publications of the Champlain Society, vols. 13–16, 4 vols. (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1920–28), 3, pt. 2:545. Brock’s employment of naval power to move troops and supplies from Fort Erie to Fort Malden is mentioned in the Buffalo Gazette, 4 August, Maj. Gen. Stephen van Rensselaer to Governor Tompkins, 12 August, and Col. Meyers to Prevost, August 17 1812, Cruikshank, ed., Niagara Frontier, 165–66, 185.

60. The treatment of the surrender of Detroit is to be found in Stanley, War of 1812, 106–11; Stagg, Mr. Madison’s War, 201–7; McAfee, History of the Late War, 71–92; Milo M. Quaife, ed., War on the Detroit: The Chronicles of Thomas Vercheres de Boucherville and the Capitulation by an Ohio Volunteer (Chicago: Lakeside Press, 1940); Merritt, “Journal,” 548–56; John Richardson, Richardson’s War of 1812, ed. Alexander C. Casselman (Toronto: Historical Publishing Co., 1902), 47–87; James Reynolds, Journal of an American Prisoner at Fort Malden and Quebec in the War of 1812 (Quebec: F. Carrel, 1909); Quaife, “General William Hull and His Critics,” Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly 47 (1938): 168–82. An additional factor in Hull’s decision to surrender may have been his deteriorating medical situation. On this aspect see Charles G. Roland, “Medical Aspects of the War in the West in 1812,” in Pryke and Kulisek, eds., The Western District, 49–60.

61. McAfee, History of the Late War, 92–93; Brock to Prevost, 17 August, Capitulation of Fort Detroit, 16 August 1812, Return of Ordnance and Stores taken at Detroit, Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 1:465–71,495–96.

62. Smith, “A North American Neutral Indian Zone,” 56–63; G. G. Hatheway, “The Neutral Indian Barrier State: A Project in British North American Policy, 1754–1815” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1957), 424–54.

63. Merritt, “Journal,” 563.

64. McAfee, History of the Late War, 94.

Chapter 2. Preparing for the 1813 Campaign

1. Brock to Prevost, 16 August 1812, William Wood, ed., Select British Documents of the Canadian War of 1812, Publications of the Champlain Society, vols. 13–16, 4 vols. (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1920–28), 1:463.

2. General Order, 16 August 1812, Quebec Gazette, in ibid., 463–65; W. H. Merritt, “Journal of Events Principally on the Detroit and Niagara Frontiers,” in ibid., vol. 3, pt. 2:555–56.

3. Irving Brant, James Madison: Commander in Chief 1812–1816 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1961), 73–74; Linda Maloney, “The War of 1812: What Role for Sea Power?” in Kenneth J. Hagan, ed., In Peace and War: Interpretations of American Naval History, 1775–1978 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978), 57–61; Kenneth J. Hagan, The People’s Navy: The Making of American Sea Power (New York: Free Press, 1991), 82–84; Edward K. Eckert, The Navy Department in the War of 1812 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1973), 30–37.

4. Woolsey to Hamilton, 9, 26, and 28 June, 4, 21, and 28 July, 25 August, Hamilton to Woolsey, 2 July, 21 August 1812, William S. Dudley, ed., The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History, 2 vols, to date (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1985–92), 1:274, 277–80, 283–85, 294–95.

5. Robert B. McAfee, History of the Late War in the Western Country (Lexington, Ky.: Worsley and Smith, 1816), 98–100; R. David Edmunds, “Tecumseh’s Native Allies: Warriors Who Fought for the Crown,” William Jeffrey Welsh and David Curtis Skaggs, eds., War on the Great Lakes: Essays Commemorating the 175th Anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1991), 66; Edmunds, The Potawatomi: Keepers of the Fire (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978), 185–88. On Wells’s career see Paul A. Hutton, “William Wells: Frontier Scout and Indian Agent,” Indiana Magazine of History 74 (September 1978): 183–222; and Harvey Lewis Carter, “A Frontier Tragedy: Little Turtle and William Wells,” The Old Northwest 6 (Spring 1980): 3–18. For the fate of many members of the Fort Dearborn garrison see Pierre Berton, The Invasion of Canada, 1812–13 (1980; reprint, Markham, Ont.: Penguin Books Canada, 1988), 251–61.

6. Charles Askin, Journal in E. A. Cruikshank, ed., Documents Relating to the Invasion of Canada and the Surrender of Detroit, 1812 (Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1912), 242–45; Return of Arms and Stores found at the River Raisin . . . [and] at the Foot of the Miamis Rapids, ibid., 176–77.

7. Col. John Campbell to Maj. Elisha Whittlesey, 17 July 1812, “Papers Relating to the War of 1812,” Western Reserve and Northern Ohio Historical Society, Tract No. 3, 3 (hereafter cited as WRHS, Tract No.); Perkins to Colonel Williams, 8 September 1812, WRHS, Tract No. 18,1; Beall to Wadsworth, 13 September 1812, WHRS Tract No. 12, 2; Perkins to Wadsworth, 9 September 1812, WRHS, Tract No. 8, 7.

8. Perkins to Wadsworth, 9 September 1812, WRHS, Tract No. 3, selection 2, 7; Perkins to Colonel Hayes, 22 September 1812, WRHS, Tract No. 18, 3.

9. Perkins to Wadsworth, 11, 29, and 30 September 1812, WRHS, Tract No. 18, 2, 4; Elijah Hanks to Root, 1 October 1812, WRHS, Tract No. 28, 2; Miller to Maj. George Tod, 25 September 1812, WRHS, Tract No. 17, 4.

10. John Richardson, Richardson’s War of 1812, ed. Alexander C. Casselman (Toronto: Historical Publishing Co., 1902), 93–103; George F. G. Stanley, The War of 1812: Land Operations, Canadian War Museum Historical Publication No. 18 (Ottawa: National Museums of Canada, 1983), 113–15.

11. William S. Dudley, “Commodore Isaac Chauncey and U.S. Joint Operations on Lake Ontario, 1813–14,” in William B. Cogar, ed., New Interpretations in Naval History: Selected Papers from the Eighth Naval History Symposium (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1989), 139–55; Edward K. Eckert, “Isaac Chauncey,” in Roger Spiller, ed., Dictionary of American Military Biography, 3 vols. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984), 1:167–70.

12. Hamilton to Chauncey, 31 August 1812, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 1:297–300.

13. Hamilton to Chauncey, 4 and 11 September 1812, ibid., 301–2, 307.

14. Hamilton to Chauncey, 11 September 1812, ibid., 307–8.

15. Chauncey to Hamilton, 26 September 1812, ibid., 1:315.

16. Abstract [Chauncey’s Journal, 7 September 1812], ibid., 316.

17. On his background see Lawrence J. Friedman and David Curtis Skaggs, “Jesse Duncan Elliott and the Battle of Lake Erie: The Issue of Mental Stability,” Journal of the Early Republic 10 (Winter 1990): 493–99; Allan Westcott, “Commodore Jesse D. Elliott: A Stormy Petrel of the Navy,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 54 (September 1928): 773–81; Christopher McKee, A Gentlemanly and Honorable Profession: The Creation of the U.S. Naval Officer Corps, 1794–1815 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1991), 293, 295, 297; Leonard F. Guttridge and Jay D. Smith, The Commodores (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1986), 127, 130, 165–66, 220–34, 316, 318; Reginald Horsman, Matthew Elliott: British Indian Agent (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1964).

18. Elliott to Chauncey, 14 September 1812, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 1:313.

19. Ibid.

20. W. W. Dobbins, History of the Battle of Lake Erie (Erie, Penn.: Ashby Printing Co., 1913), 8–10; Hamilton to Daniel Dobbins, 11 September, Hamilton to Capt. Thomas Tingey, 15 September, Hamilton to Dobbins, 15 September, Dobbins to Chauncey, 28 September 1812, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 1:307, 309–11. Charged with violating his Mackinac parole, Dobbins was in considerable danger before escaping.

21. Elliott to Dobbins, 2 October, Dobbins to Elliott, 11 October 1812, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 1:321–22.

22. Elliott to Hamilton, 9 October, Brock to Prevost, 11 October 1812, ibid., 327–33. Years later, Elliott’s supposed neglect of the army officers involved in this contest created a controversy between him and the senior army officer involved, Capt. (later brigadier general) Nathan Towson. See [Jesse Duncan Elliott], Correspondence in Relation to the Capture of the British Brigs, Detroit and Caledonia on the Night of October 8, 1812 (Philadelphia: U.S. Book and Job Printing Office, 1843).

23. Brock to Prevost, 11 October 1812, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 1:321–33.

24. Chauncey to Hamilton, 22 October 1812, ibid., 339. For a brief outline of the situation on the Niagara River that autumn see Joseph Whitehorne, While Washington Burned: The Battle for Fort Erie, 1814 (Baltimore: Nautical and Aviation Publishing, 1992), 3–9. A brief analysis of General van Rensselaer’s failure is also found in Theodore J. Crackel, “The Battle of Queenston Heights, 13 October 1812,” in Charles E. Heller and William A Stofft, eds., America’s First Battles, 1776–1965 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986), 33–56.

25. “Speech on Bill to Raise an Additional Military Force, January 8, 9, 1813,” James F. Hopkins, ed., The Papers of Henry Clay, 10 vols. (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1959–91), 1:771.

26. Chauncey to Hamilton, 13 and 26 November 1812, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 1:345–46, 353.

27. Sheaffe to Prevost, 16 and 22 December 1812, Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 1:661–62, 666.

28. Angus to Hamilton, 27 December 1812, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 1:372–74; Chauncey to Hamilton, 8 January, Chauncey to Angus, 27 March, Angus to Chauncey, 8 April 1813, ibid., 2:438–39.

29. Hamilton to Perry, 18 June, 6 October, Perry Papers, Great Lakes Research Institute, Perrysburg, Ohio; Rogers to Perry, 20 and 25 November 1812, 9 February 1813, Perry Papers, William L. Clements Library (hereafter cited as WLCL), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Perry to Hamilton, 6 June, Perry to Hamilton, 28 November 1812, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 1:126, 354; Chauncey to Secretary of the Navy William Jones, 21 January, Chauncey to Perry, 15 March 1813, ibid., 2:422–23; Jones to Perry, 5 and 8 February 1813, Letters to Officers, Ships of War, vol. 10, Department of the Navy, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

30. The standard biographies are Charles J. Dutton, Oliver Hazard Perry (New York: Longmans, Green, 1935); Edwin P. Hoyt, The Tragic Commodore: The Story of Oliver Hazard Perry (London: Abelard-Schuman, 1966); and Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, The Life of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1840). A brief sketch by John K. Mahon, “Oliver Hazard Perry: Savior of the Northwest,” is in James C. Bradford, ed., Command Under Sail: Makers of the American Naval Tradition, 1775–1850 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1985), 126–46. For the personal comments cited see Sarah Wallace Perry, “A Sister’s Reminiscences of Oliver Hazard Perry’s Childhood,” American Magazine and Historical Chronicle 4 (Autumn-Winter 1988–89): 19–31; William V. Taylor, “Description of the Battle of Lake Erie,” 23 June 1818, and Francis Vinton to Benson J. Lossing, 17 April 1860, Perry Papers, WLCL.

31. Procter to Sheaffe, 25 January 1813, Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:7–12; Merritt, “Journal,” 557; Winchester to Harrison, 21 January, “Return of the American Prisoners Killed,” Maj. Elijah McClenahan to Harrison, 26 January 1813, Richard C. Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions of the War of 1812 in the Northwest, 10 vols. (Columbus: Ohio Historical Society, 1961–62), 7, pt. 1:49–52, 61–62; McAfee, History of the Late War, 200–235; Richardson, War of 1812, 132–47. Among the secondary accounts see Berton, Invasion of Canada, 378–414; Dennis Carter-Edwards, “The War of 1812 along the Detroit Frontier: A Canadian Perspective,” Michigan Historical Review 13 (1987): 25–50; Alec R. Gilpin, The War of 1812 in the Old Northwest (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1958); George F. G. Stanley, The War of 1812: Land Operations (Ottawa: National Museum of Man, 1983), 143–48.

32. Hambleton Diary, MS 983, Maryland Historical Society (hereafter cited as MHS), Baltimore, folios 1–19. A brief outline of Hambleton’s career is found in McKee, Gentlemanly and Honorable Profession, 353.

33. Chauncey to Perry, 15 March 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:422–23.

34. Dobbins, Battle of Lake Erie, 24; Mackenzie, Life of Perry, 1:137–38.

35. Chauncey to Jones, 28 May, John Vincent to Prevost, 28 May 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:463–66; Mackenzie, Life of Perry, 1:139–48. David Curtis Skaggs, “Joint Operations during the Detroit-Lake Erie Campaign,” and Dudley, “Commodore Isaac Chauncey,” in Cogar, ed., New Interpretations, 121–55.

36. Ernest Cruikshank, The Battle of Fort George, Niagara Historical Society Publication No. 12 (Welland, Ont.: Tribune Print, 1904), 20–35; Stanley, War of 1812, 179–86; James Fenimore Cooper, Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers (Auburn, N.Y.: J. C. Derby, 1846), 163–65.

37. Chauncey to Jones, 29 May, Perry to Chauncey, 12 June 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:480; Mackenzie, Life of Perry, 1:148–50.

38. Dobbins, Battle of Lake Erie, 25–32; Perry to Jones, 19 June 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:481–82.

39. Gray to Vincent, 16 January, Bruyeres to Prevost, 19 January 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:411–17.

40. Procter to Sheaffe, 28 November 1812, U.S. Department of State, War of 1812 Papers, Roll 7: Miscellaneous Intercepted Correspondences, 1789–1814, National Archives, Microcopy 588; Procter to Sheaffe, 13 January 1813, Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:3–4.

41. Lords of Admiralty to Yeo, J. W. Croker to Yeo, 19 March 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:435–37.

42. Frederick C. Drake, “Commodore Sir James Lucas Yeo and Governor General George Prevost: A Study in Command Relations, 1813–14,” in Cogar, ed., New Interpretations, 156–71; John W. Spurr, “Sir James Lucas Yeo,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 13 vols. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966–94), 5:874–77 (hereafter cited as DCB). On Yeo’s service in American waters see “Ships in Sea Pay,” Capt. John H. Dent to Hamilton, 14 November, Yeo to Vice Adm. Charles Sterling, 22 November, 11 December 1812, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 1:181, 582–86, 594–95.

43. Johnston to Jane Johnston, 28 April, 23 June 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:444–46.

44. W. A. B. Douglas, “The Honor of the Flag Had Not Suffered: Robert Heriot Barclay and the Battle of Lake Erie,” in Welsh and Skaggs, eds., War on the Great Lakes, 30–40. See also Douglas, “Robert Heriot Barclay,” DCB, 7:45–47; Robert Buckie, “‘His Majesty’s Flag Has Not Been Tarnished’: The Role of Robert Heriot Barclay,” Journal of Erie Studies 17 (Fall 1988): 85–102.

45. “Narrative of the Proceedings during the Command of Captain Barclay of His Majesty’s Squadron on Lake Erie,” Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:298–99; Frederick C. Drake, “A Loss of Mastery: The British Squadron on Lake Erie, May-September 1813,” Journal of Erie Studies 17 (Fall 1988): 48–49.

46. See note 42, plus Theodore Roosevelt, The Naval War of 1812 (1882; reprint, Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1987), 212–37; A. T. Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812, 2 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1905), vol. 2, ch. 10; C. P. Stacey, “Another Look at the Battle of Lake Erie,” Canadian Historical Review 39 (March 1958): 41–51; Stacey, “Naval Power on the Lakes, 1812–1814,” in Philip P. Mason, ed., After Tippecanoe: Some Aspects of the War of 1812 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1963), 49–59; Stacey, “The Defence of Upper Canada, 1812,” in Morris Zaslow, ed., The Defended Border: Upper Canada and the War of 1812 (Toronto: Macmillan, 1964), 11–20; Drake, “Loss of Mastery,” 47–76; Stanley, War of 1812, 167–200; J. Mackay Hitsman, The Incredible War of 1812 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), 122–39.

47. Procter to Robert McDouall, 16 June, Barclay to General Vincent, 17 June 1813, “Narrative of . . . the Command of Captain Barclay,” Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:243–47, 299–300. See also Douglas, “Honor of the Flag,” 38–40; Ernest A. Cruikshank, “The Contest for Command of Lake Erie in 1812–13,” in Zaslow, Defended Border, 88–92. The most recent account of the construction of Barclay’s flagship is found in Robert Malcomson and Thomas Malcomson, HMS Detroit: The Battle for Lake Erie (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1990), 53–63. The Detroit was a one-lake ship, her draft being too great for her to sail through Lake St. Clair into Lake Huron.

48. “Narrative of . . . the Command of Captain Barclay,” Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:300.

49. Barclay to Vincent, 17 June, Procter to Prevost, 11 July, Prevost [unsigned draft] to Procter, 12 July, Procter to Prevost, 13 July, Barclay to Prevost, 16 July 1813, “Narrative of . . . the Command of Captain Barclay,” Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:246, 253–59, 300–301.

50. The original idea for such an amphibious attack on Detroit, circumventing the logistical problems of an overland march, apparently came from Gov. Isaac Shelby of Kentucky, Shelby to Secretary of War Armstrong, 21 February, Jesup to Armstrong, 27 March 1813, Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions, 7, pt. 1:122–23, 198. See also Armstrong to Harrison, 5 March, Armstrong to Jesup, 9 March 1813, American State Papers: Military Affairs, 7 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Gales and Seaton, 1832–60), 1:452; Jesup to Armstrong, 11 and 12 April, 5 and 14 June, 1 August 1813, Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions, 7, pt. 2:25, 31, 158, 169; 7, pt. 3:51; Thomas S. Jesup Diary, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Drake, “Loss of Mastery,” 54–57; Howard S. Miller and Jack Alden Clarke, “Ships in the Wilderness: A Note on the Invasion of Canada, 1813,” Ohio History 71 (July 1962): 124–28.

51. Stanton Sholes, “A Narrative of the Northwestern Campaign of 1813,” M. M. Quaife, ed., Mississippi Valley Historical Review 15 (March 1929): 519–20.

52. Perry to Chauncey, 10 April 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:441; Hambleton Diary, folios 19–20, MHS; Perry to Mead, 16 April, Perry to Brig. Gen. William H. Winder, 18 April, Perry to Chauncey, 27 March, 7 May 1813, Perry Letterbook, WLCL; Usher Parsons, Battle of Lake Erie ([Providence]: Rhode Island Historical Society, 1852), 5; Secretary of War [John Armstrong] to James E. Swearingen, 23 March, to Ebenezer Denny, 8 April 1813, Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions, 8:135, 141.

53. McAfee, History of the Late War, 287–82; Procter to Prevost, 14 May 1813, “Embarkation Return of the Western Army,” Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:33–38; Richardson, War of 1812, 148–88. The standard study of this siege is Larry L. Nelson, Men of Patriotism, Courage, and Enterprise! Fort Meigs in the War of 1812 (Canton, Ohio: Daring Books, 1985), 67–92.

54. McAfee, History of the Late War, 297–303, 316–22; Nelson, Men of Patriotism, 100–111. There are some indications that Procter hoped to capture the Fort Meigs artillery for use on the Detroit.

55. Bruce Bowlus, “A ‘Signal Victory’: The Battle for Fort Stephenson, August 1–2, 1813,” Northwest Ohio Quarterly 63 (Summer-Autumn 1991): 43–57.

56. Harrison to Secretary of War Armstrong, 8 September 1813, Logan Esarey, ed., Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison, 2 vols. (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Commission, 1922), 2:537–39.

57. Stanley, War of 1812, 152–56, 159–61, 210–14; Richardson, War of 1812, 214–34.

58. Hambleton Diary, 5–8 August 1813, MHS.

Chapter 3. Building and Manning the Fleets

1. The original idea for such an amphibious attack on Detroit, circumventing the logistical problems of an overland march, apparently came from Gov. Isaac Shelby of Kentucky. Secretary of War John Armstrong agreed with Shelby’s tactical assessment and passed on instructions to Harrison to make no offensive move until control of the lake was wrested from the British. Shelby to Secretary of War Armstrong, 21 February, Jesup to Armstrong, 27 March, Armstrong to Harrison, 3 April 1813, Richard C. Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions of the War of 1812 in the Northwest, 10 vols. (Columbus: Ohio Historical Society, 1961–62), 7, pt. 1:122–23, 198, 8:138. See also Armstrong to Harrison, 5 March, Armstrong to Jesup, 9 March 1813, American State Papers: Military Affairs, 7 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Gales and Seaton, 1832–60), 1:452 (hereafter cited as ASP: MA); Jesup to Armstrong, 11 and 12 April, 5 and 14 June, 1 August 1813, Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions, 7, pt. 2:25, 31, 158, 169; 7, pt. 3:51; Frederick C. Drake, “Loss of Mastery: The British Squadron on Lake Erie, May-September 1813,” Journal of Erie Studies 17 (Fall 1989): 54–57; Howard S. Miller and Jack Alden Clarke, “Ships in the Wilderness: A Note on the Invasion of Canada, 1813,” Ohio History 71 (July 1962): 124–28.

2. Harrison to Armstrong, 17 March, Armstrong to Harrison, 4 April 1813, ASP: MA, 452–54.

3. Jones to Perry, 3 July 1813, William S. Dudley, ed., The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History, 2 vols. to date (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1985–92), 2:487–88.

4. Prevost to Barclay, 21 July 1813, ibid., 545.

5. The discussion of principles of logistics is based on James A. Huston, The Sinews of War: Army Logistics, 1775–1953, Army Historical Series (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army, 1966), 655–88.

6. The logistical situation is discussed in its broadest aspects in Huston, Sinews of War, 102–12; Erna Risch, Quartermaster Support of the Army: A History of the Corps, 1775–1939 (Washington, D.C.: [Department of the Army] Quartermaster Historians Office, 1962), 135–80; Bereton Greenhous, “A Note on Western Logistics in the War of 1812,” Military Affairs 34 (April 1970): 41–44; Jeffrey Kimball, “The Fog and Friction of Frontier War: The Role of Logistics in American Offensive Failure during the War of 1812,” The Old Northwest 5 (Winter 1979–80): 323–43; C. P. Stacey, “Another Look at the Battle of Lake Erie,” Canadian Historical Review 39 (March 1958): 41–51; Stacey, “Naval Power on the Lakes, 1812–1814,” in Philip P. Mason, ed., After Tippecanoe: Some Aspects of the War of 1812 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1963), 49–59.

7. Frank H. Severance, ed., “The Dobbins Papers,” Publications of the Buffalo Historical Society 7 (1905): 294–96; Thomas Malcomson and Robert Malcomson, HMS Detroit: The Battle for Lake Erie (St. Catherine’s, Ont.: Vanwell, 1990), 53–56.

8. Prevost to Gray, 19 December 1812, William Wood, ed., Select British Documents of the Canadian War of 1812, Publications of the Champlain Society, vols. 13–16, 4 vols. (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1920–28), 2:61.

9. The discussion of shipbuilding techniques is based upon both the surviving records and secondary accounts such as Malcomson and Malcomson, HMS Detroit; C. Nepean Longridge, The Anatomy of Nelson’s Ships (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1961); Brian Lavery, Building the Wooden Walls: The Design and Construction of the 74-Gun Ship Valiant (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1991); Lavery, The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War, 1600–1815 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1987); and Lavery, ed., The Line of Battle: The Sailing Warship, 1650–1840 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1992). All of these books are distributed in the United States by the Naval Institute Press. On the British lakes marine situation see A. H. Pye, “Report on the Provincial Marine of the Canadas,” 7 December 1811, R. H. Sheaffe to Prevost, 22 December 1812, Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 1:240–44, 666–67.

10. Procter to Sheaffe, 13 January 1813, Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:3–4.

11. “Letter from a Naval Officer,” 7 October 1813, Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions, 5, pt. 2:395. The commercial vessels utilized by both sides had rails above the main deck but not wales, and therefore the gunners were not protected from enemy fire. For an example, see the model of General Hunter at Fort Malden Historic Park, Amherstburg, Ontario.

12. Barclay to Procter, 29 June 1813, Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:249.

13. For a list of what was needed for a 14-gun vessel see Deputy QMG A. Gray’s Memorandum of 24 November 1812, Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society Historical Collections, vol. 15 (Lansing, Mich.: Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Co., 1919), 189 (hereafter cited as MPHSHC). For the larger Detroit, Gray argued that the “old Iron from the Camden” would supply the difference between the requirements for an 14-gun and a 18-gun vessel.

14. Deposition of John Connelly, 8 March, Barclay to Yeo, 4 and 16 June 1813, Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions, 7, pt. 1:156, 4:19–20, 23, 26; Barclay to Prevost, 16 July 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:544–45; Max Rosenberg, The Building of Perry’s Fleet on Lake Erie, 1812–1812 (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1968), 39–40.

15. “Lake Erie Court-Martial Papers,” Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:301.

16. Barclay to Yeo, 1 and 4 June 1813, Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions, 4:17, 20.

17. Barclay to Yeo, 4 June 1813, ibid., 20.

18. Barclay to Yeo, 1 June 1813, ibid., 17.

19. Barclay to Yeo, 17 August 1813, ibid., 32; Procter to Prevost, 18 August, MPHSHC, 15:354.

20. Barclay to Yeo, 4 June 1813, Testimony of Prov. Lt. Francis Purvis and RN Lt. Thomas Stokoe, Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions, 4:20, 7, 8. Perhaps the best evidence of the stripping of other vessels comes after the American victory on Lake Erie. The transport Nancy limped into Mackinac harbor with sails and rigging in such poor shape that she could not be used to procure supplies across Lake Huron. Alexander Mackintosh to Captain Bullock, 16 October, Bullock to Colonel Baynes, 21 October 1813, MPHSHC, 15:412–13, 421–22.

21. Barclay to General Vincent, 17 June 1813, “Lake Erie Court-Martial Papers,” Barclay to Yeo, 5 August 1813, Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:246, 301, 4:29.

22. John Richardson, Richardson’s War of 1812, ed. Alexander C. Casselman (Toronto: Historical Publishing Co., 1902), 190; Malcomson and Malcomson, HMS Detroit, 87–89; A. T. Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1905), 77; “Lake Erie Court-Martial Papers,” 16 September 1814, Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:317. At General Prevost’s headquarters there appears to have been little comprehension of Barclay’s predicament. As late as 26 August, Prevost’s military secretary Noah Freer drafted a letter indicating that a dozen 24-pounder carronades were being sent to Burlington Bay on Lake Ontario for Barclay to pick up at Long Point. Three weeks earlier Barclay informed Yeo that he was going to Amherstburg and no shipments through Long Point could be received since Perry now dominated Lake Erie. Freer to Procter, 26 August 1813, MPHSHC, 15:363.

23. Rosenberg, Building of Perry’s Fleet, is the standard account of the work accomplished at Erie and is utilized as a source throughout this section. See also Robert D. Ilisevich, Daniel Dobbins, Frontier Mariner (Erie, Pa.: Erie County Historical Society, 1993), 24–42. For procedures involved in constructing a 20-gun oceangoing vessel similar in many respects to the two Great Lakes brigs being built in Erie, see Peter Goodwin, The 20-Gun Ship Blandford (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1988).

24. C. W. Goldsborough to Dobbins, 15 September, Dobbins to Chauncey, 28 September, Elliott to Dobbins, 2 October, Dobbins to Elliott, 11 October, Anderson to Hamilton, 8 October 1812, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 1:310–11, 321–22.

25. Anderson to Hamilton, Chauncey to Hamilton, 8 October 1812, ibid., 323, 337

26. Chauncey to Hamilton, 1 January, Chauncey to Dobbins, 9 January, Chauncey to Noah Brown, 18 February, Chauncey to Dobbins, 18 February, Chauncey to Brown, 20 March 1813, Chauncey Papers, William L. Clements Library (hereafter cited as WLCL), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The final decision to build two brigs was made between the time he left Erie and his arrival at New York.

27. Chauncey to Harrison, 25 February, Chauncey to Sackett, 24 February, Chauncey to Jones, 24 February, Chauncey to Perry, 1 April, Chauncey to John Bullus, 21 April 1813, ibid.

28. Spencer C. Tucker, The Jeffersonian Gunboat Navy (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993), 55, 60, 188–89; Robert Gardiner, ed., The Line of Battle: The Sailing Warship, 1650–1840 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1992), 79; Howard I. Chapelle, The History of the American Sailing Navy: The Ships and Their Development (New York: Bonanza Books, 1949), 220, 225, 256–60, 268–72, 298–308, 422; Chauncey to Perry, 15 March 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:422–23.

29. Chauncey to Jones, 20 March, Chauncey to Brown, 1 April, Chauncey to Jones, 16 April, 29 May 1813, Chauncey Papers, WLCL; Perry to Chauncey, 27 March 1813, Perry Papers, WLCL; Dobbins to Chauncey, 14 March, Perry to Chauncey, 10 April 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:440–41.

30. Perry to Chauncey, 10 April 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:441; Perry to Ormsby, 26 March, 11 April, Perry to Chauncey, 29 March, Perry to Taylor, 22 April, Perry to Dr. J. E. Roberts, 22 April, Perry to Vincent, 17 April, 2 and 7 May 1813, Perry Papers, WLCL. The carpenters’ tools did not arrive until 17 April, and as late as early May the absence of blockmakers’ tools inhibited the rigging process. Perry to Chauncey, 18 April, Perry to Ormsby, 4 May 1813, ibid.

31. Perry to Chauncey, 18 April 1813, Perry Papers, WLCL; W. W. Dobbins, History of the Battle of Lake Erie (Erie, Penn.: Ashby Printing Co., 1913), 31–32.

32. Dobbins, Battle of Lake Erie, 22–23; Perry to Lt. John Pettigrew, 27 March, 14 and 28 April, Perry to Dobbins, 27 March, 14 April, Perry to Holdup, 28 April, 9 and 17 May 1813, Perry Papers, WLCL.

33. Perry to Ormsby, 7 April, Perry to Woolley, 7 April, Perry to Chauncey, 28 April 1813, Perry Papers, WLCL. For more on Perry and interservice cooperation see David Curtis Skaggs, “Joint Operations during the Detroit-Lake Erie Campaign, 1813,” in William B. Cogar, ed., New Interpretations in Naval History: Selected Papers from the Eighth Naval History Symposium (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1989), 121–38.

34. Perry to Chauncey, 28 April, 7, 9, and 22–23 May, Perry to Ormsby, 20 April, 4, 20, and 22 May, Perry to George Harrison, 6 May, Perry to Taylor, 6 and 12 May, Perry to Lt. Daniel Turner, 15 and 20 May, Turner to Perry, 8 June, Perry to Hambleton, 15 May, Perry to Holdup, 17 and 23 May 1813, Perry Papers, WLCL. In the midst of all this effort, Perry faced personnel problems. Lt. Daniel Turner, who had been given supervisory duties aboard the outfitting Lawrence, despaired of satisfying Perry and requested reassignment. Turner to Perry, 28 July 1813, ibid.

35. Anthony Price, The Eyes of the Fleet: A Popular History of Frigates and Frigate Captains, 1793–1815 (New York: Norton, 1996); 37.

36. “Lake Erie Court-Martial Papers,” Barclay to Prevost, 6 July 1813, Barclay, “Statement of the Force of His Majesty’s Squadron Employed on Lake Erie,” Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:298, 250, 252.

37. Barclay to Prevost, 16 July, Proctor to Prevost, 18 and 26 August, Barclay to Yeo, 1 September 1813, “Lake Erie Court-Martial Papers,” ibid., 258, 261, 264–65, 268, 301, 303; James Cochrane, “The War in Canada, 1812–1814” (undated MS, ca. 1840, Welch Regiment Museum, Cardiff Castle, South Wales), folio 50.

38. For a detailed discussion of Barclay’s manpower situation see Douglas L. Hendry, Charles C. Morrisey, and David Curtis Skaggs, “British Personnel at the Battle of Lake Erie,” Inland Seas (forthcoming, 1997).

39. Patrick A. Wilder, The Battle of Sackett’s Harbour, 1813 (Baltimore: Nautical and Aviation, 1994); Joseph M. Thatcher, “A Fleet in the Wilderness: Shipbuilding at Sackets Harbor,” in R. Arthur Bowler, ed., War along the Niagara: Essays on the War of 1812 and Its Legacy (Youngstown, N.Y.: Old Fort Niagara Association, 1991), 53–59; Memoir of Lieutenant David Wingfield, R.N., Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:470.

40. Jones to Chauncey, 18 April 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:433.

41. Chauncey to Jones, 11 June, Jones to Chauncey, 17 June, Chauncey to Jones, 24 June 1813, ibid., 493–94, 498; Chauncey to Jones, 4 and 10 June, 1 July 1813, Chauncey Letterbook, WLCL.

42. Chauncey to Perry, 3 June, Chauncey to Jones, 5 July 1813, Chauncey Letterbook, WLCL.

43. Chauncey to Jones, 8 and 15 July, Chauncey to Perry, 14 July 1813, ibid.

44. Jones to Chauncey, 3 July 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:509–12.

45. Perry to Chauncey, 27 July 1813, ibid., 529–30.

46. Chauncey to Perry, 30 July 1813, ibid., 530. The most thorough discussion of the issue is found in Gerard T. Altoff, Amongst My Best Men: African-Americans and the War of 1812 (Put-in-Bay, Ohio: The Perry Group, 1996), 33–41; Martha S. Putney, Black Sailors: Afro-American Merchant Seamen and Whalemen Prior to the Civil War (New York: Greenwood, 1987).

47. William Taylor Affidavit, 23 June 1818, Perry Papers, WLCL; Hambleton Diary, MS 983, Maryland Historical Society (hereafter cited as MHS), Baltimore, 12 October 1813.

48. Anonymous and Miscellaneous Manuscripts, Perry Papers, WLCL.

49. Altoff, Amongst My Best Men, 40–43; Pension file applications of Diane Hardy, Mary Brown, Elizabeth Brown, Margaret Boone, Records of the Pension Office, RG 15, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

50. Usher Parsons to George Livermore, 18 October 1862, Joseph T. Wilson, The Black Phalanx: A History of the Negro Soldiers of the United States in the Wars of 1775–1812, 1861–1865 (Hartford: American Publishing, 1889), 78.

51. Gerard T. Altoff, Deep Water Sailors, Shallow Water Soldiers (Put-in-Bay, Ohio: The Perry Group, 1993), 21–23.

52. Hambleton Diary, 30 and 31 July 1813, MHS; Altoff, Deep Water Sailors, 15–21.

53. Altoff, Deep Water Sailors, 125; Charles B. Galbreath, “The Battle of Lake Erie in Ballad and History,” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications 20 (1911): 418–22; Dobbins, Battle of Lake Erie, 149–51.

54. Altoff, Deep Water Sailors, 21–23.

55. Chauncey to Perry, 3 August, Chauncey to Elliott, 3 August, Chauncey to Jones, 4 August 1813, Chauncey Letterbook, WLCL.

56. David C. Bunnell, The Travels and Adventures of David C. Bunnell (Palmyra, N.Y.: J. H. Bartles, 1831), 1–105, quote on 105 (emphasis is Bunnell’s). Barclay to Capt. James Leonard, 12 April 1813, Chauncey Letterbook, WLCL, contains the list of prisoners to be tried for various crimes, mostly desertion. At least one other among this group of ten sailors would be sent forward with Elliott.

57. John Norris to A. S. Goodman, 27 March 1869, 4 June 1868 [1869], Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions, 7, pt. 1:157–58, 161.

58. Hendry, Morrisey, and Skaggs, “British Personnel at the Battle of Lake Erie.”

59. Altoff, Deep Water Sailors, discusses the American manpower situation in detail. For a detailed list of U.S. manpower see Gerard T. Altoff, Charles C. Morrisey, and David Curtis Skaggs, “American Personnel at the Battle of Lake Erie,” Inland Seas (forthcoming, 1997).

60. Surgeon Parsons lists seventy-eight men unfit for duty on 10 September, of which there were approximately thirty on each the Niagara and Lawrence. Alexander Mackenzie cites a figure of 116 sick on the morning of the battle. “Surgeon Usher Parsons’s Account of the Battle of Lake Erie,” Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:563; Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, The Life of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1843), 2:218. Tristam Burges used the 116 figure in his lecture of 1839, Battle of Lake Erie with Notices of Commodore Elliot[t]’s Conduct in That Engagement (Philadelphia: Wm. Marshall, 1839), 28.

61. The best descriptions of the crossing of the bar are in Rosenberg, Building of Perry’s Fleet, 50–52, and in Walter Rybka, “The Camel: Nautical Beast of Burden,” Niagara League News 6 (May 1995): 1–3 (the latter is the newsletter of the Niagara League of Erie, Pennsylvania). One should also consult Dobbins, Battle of Lake Erie, 48–51; Stephen Champlin to W. W. Dobbins, 17 June 1860, Dobbins Papers, Erie County Historical Society, Buffalo, N.Y.; Usher Parsons, Battle of Lake Erie ([Providence]: Rhode Island Historical Society, 1852), 6; W. A. B. Douglas, Gunfire on the Lakes: The Naval War of 1812–1814 on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain (Ottawa: National Museum of Man, 1977), 16; Drake, “Loss of Mastery,” 64–65; Hambleton Diary, 1, 3, 4, and 5 August 1813, MHS; Perry to Jones, 4 August 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:546.

62. Rosenberg, Building of Perry’s Fleet, 27–28.

63. W. A. B. Douglas, “The Honor of the Flag Had Not Suffered: Robert Heriot Barclay and the Battle of Lake Erie,” in W. Jeffrey Welsh and David Curtis Skaggs, eds., War on the Great Lakes: Essays Commemorating the 175th Anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1991), 35.

64. Ibid., 33–34. Barclay had 42 guns on 4 August with a broadside capacity of 399 pounds. Perry had 36 guns with a broadside capacity of 660 pounds. The largest long gun in Barclays squadron was one 12-pounder. If the two squadrons came within carronade range, the principal matchup was for Lawrence’s eighteen 32-pounders against Queen Charlotte’s eighteen 24-pounders. See Barclay, “Statement of the Force of His Majesty’s Squadron Employed on Lake Erie,” ca. 6 July 1813, Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:252; Frederick C. Drake, “Artillery and Its Influence on Naval Tactics: Reflections on the Battle of Lake Erie,” in Welsh and Skaggs, War on the Great Lakes, 17–29, especially Tables 1 and 2; and the Appendix and Table 5 in this text. The Americans also had long guns in the stockades at the mouth of Presque Isle Bay.

Chapter 4. Preliminaries to Combat

1. Clay to Procter, 9 August 1813, William S. Dudley, ed., The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History, 2 vols, to date (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1985–92), 2:547–48.

2. Perry to Jones, 4 August, Perry to Christopher R. Perry, 9 August 1813, ibid., 546, 549.

3. Harrison to Perry, 5 July 1813, Douglas E. Clanin, ed., “The Correspondence of William Henry Harrison and Oliver Hazard Perry, July 5, 1813–July 31, 1815,” Northwest Ohio Quarterly 60 (Autumn 1988): 160.

4. Circular, Hamilton to Selected Officers, 20 June 1820, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 1:140.

5. Barclay’s situation was similar; he was not a “commodore” but merely the local commander of a squadron in Commodore Yeo’s Great Lakes fleet.

6. Chauncey to Jones, 18 March 1813 Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:432.

7. Jones to Chauncey, 8 April, Agreement Governing Joint Operations, 8 April 1813, ibid., 434–35. For a detailed analysis of the Harrison-Perry collaboration see David Curtis Skaggs, “Joint Operations during the Detroit-Lake Erie Campaign, 1813,” in William B. Cogar, ed., New Interpretations in Naval History: Selected Papers from the Eighth Naval History Symposium (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1989), 121–38.

8. See Donald E. Graves, The Battle of Lundy’s Lane on the Niagara, 1814 (Baltimore: Nautical and Aviation Publishing Co., 1993), 10–17, 77–85; and William S. Dudley, “Commodore Isaac Chauncey and U.S. Joint Operations on Lake Ontario, 1813–14,” in Cogar, ed., New Interpretations, 139–55.

9. Admiralty Lords to Yeo with enclosure, 19 March 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:435–37. For an extended discussion of the Prevost-Yeo relationship see Frederick C. Drake, “Commodore Sir James Lucas Yeo and Governor General George Prevost: A Study in Command Relationships,” in Cogar, ed., New Interpretations, 156–71, quote on p.160.

10. Procter to Prevost, 13 July 1813, William Wood, ed., Select British Documents of the Canadian War of 1812, Publications of the Champlain Society, vols. 13–16, 4 vols. (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1920–28), 2:257, where Procter notes, “I cannot take heavy Ordnance, or have the assistance of the Navy” in the second attack on Fort Meigs.

11. Canadian and British authorities have long denigrated the importance of Elliott’s achievement, especially in the light of its being followed by the British victory at Queenston Heights. See not only the comments of a contemporary in John Richardson, Richardson’s War of 1812, ed. Alexander C. Casselman (Toronto: Historical Publishing Co., 1902), 88–90, but also the comments of modern historian George F. G. Stanley, who describes General Brock as being in “a moment of pessimism” when he was distressed over the loss of the vessels. Stanley, The War of 1812: Land Operations, Canadian War Museum Historical Publication No. 18 (Ottawa: National Museums of Canada, 1983), 124. Seldom has its relationship to the battle of Lake Erie been mentioned.

12. As quoted in Stanley, War of 1812, 202.

13. Procter to Prevost, 11 and 13 July, Barclay to Prevost, 16 July 1813, “Narrative of the Proceedings during the Command of Captain Barclay of His Majesty’s Squadron on Lake Erie,” Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:253–54, 257–59, 299–300.

14. Prevost to Procter, 12 July 1813, ibid., 255.

15. “Narrative of . . . the Command of Captain Barclay,” ibid., 303–4.

16. Stanley, War of 1812, 202–3; Richardson, War of 1812, 190.

17. “Narrative of . . . the Command of Captain Barclay,” Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:304–6; Richardson, War of 1812, 190.

18. Barclay to Hall, Hall to Barclay, 14 August 1813, Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:259–60.

19. W. A. B. Douglas, “The Anatomy of Naval Incompetence: The Provincial Marine in the Defence of Upper Canada before 1813,” Ontario History 71 (March 1979): 19–20; K. C. Pryke, “George B. Hall,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 13 vols. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966–94), 6:308–10.

20. Lords of Admiralty to Yeo, 19 March 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:437.

21. [Freer] to Procter, [draft, ca. 26 August 1813], Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society Historical Collections, vol. 15 (Lansing, Mich.: Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Co., 1919), 362 (hereafter cited as MPHSHC). This letter contains a severe reprimand to Procter for allowing Barclay to “annul any appointment which had received His Excellency’s warrant. . . . [N]o services whatever are to be undertaken in a disposition of the Naval Forces made by the senior officer cmg H.M. Vessels on Lake Erie, that has not the concurrence & approbation of the Genl officer comg. the Right Division [i.e., Procter].” See also Thomas Malcomson and Robert Malcomson, HMS Detroit: The Battle for Lake Erie (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1990), 62–63.

22. Barclay to Yeo, 12 September 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:556; General Orders, Montreal, 24 November 1813, Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:296–97.

23. Hambleton Diary, August 8, 1813, MS 983, Maryland Historical Society (hereafter cited as MHS), Baltimore, folio 41.

24. Chauncey to Perry, 30 July 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:530–31 (emphasis is Chauncey’s). This letter is in reply to Perry to Chauncey, 27 July 1813, ibid., 529–30. Chauncey was under considerable pressure from Secretary Jones to assist Perry. See Chauncey to Jones, 4 August 1813, ibid., 528–29. The issue of a separate Lake Erie command was certainly in the mind of some in Perry’s squadron, especially Purser Samuel Hambleton. By allowing Perry total control over all men designated for his command, some of the personnel difficulties he faced could be alleviated. But it would not be the most effectual way to coordinate activities between the two lakes and to allow for personnel transfers between them when the situation warranted it. On the other hand, Master Commandant Thomas Macdonough had a separate command on Lake Champlain, where there was much greater difficulty coordinating with Chauncey on Lake Ontario. Secretary of the Navy Hamilton to Macdonough, 28 September 1812, ibid., 1:319–20.

25. Hambleton Diary, August 12, 1813, MHS. On the other hand, William V. Taylor, sailing master of the Lawrence, later reported that the first draft consisted of men “barely able to assist themselves” and that those who came with Elliott were “every way the equals of the former draft.” Taylor, “Description of the Battle of Lake Erie,” 23 June 1818, Perry Papers, William L. Clements Library (hereafter cited as WLCL), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In his letters to Secretary Jones, Chauncey consistently overestimated the number of men he was sending to Perry. See Chauncey to Jones, 15 and 17 July 1813, Letterbooks of Isaac Chauncey, WLCL.

26. Perry to Jones, 10 August, Jones to Perry, 18 August 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:532–33. A muddled version of this episode appears in W. W. Dobbins, History of the Battle of Lake Erie (Erie, Penn.: Ashby Printing Co., 1913), 62–63.

27. French River on Georgian Bay of Lake Huron was the outlet of a waterborne supply route up the Ottawa River and portages to Lake Nipissing and then down the French River into Lake Huron. It provided a means of supplying the British forces at Fort Michilimackinac, Fort St. Joseph, and the fur traders and Indians on the upper lakes while bypassing Lakes Ontario and Erie. This route would be used to supply the upper lakes after Perry’s victory.

28. Chauncey wrote Perry on 3 June 1813, indicating “it will be quite uncertain when I can leave this Lake, as the Enemy is making every exertion to regain his ascendancy [here].” Chauncey to Perry, 14 July 1813, both in Letterbooks of Isaac Chauncey, WLCL. See also Chauncey to Jones, 4 June 1813, ibid. The manpower situation became even worse for Chauncey when on 9 and 10 August he lost four schooners, 160 men, and twenty-three guns to weather and enemy action.

29. Order Book of Oliver H. Perry, 7 July–27 September 1813, WLCL; Usher Parsons, Brief Sketches of the Officers Who Were in the Battle of Lake Erie (Albany, N.Y.: J. Munsell, 1862); Maj. Gen. Henry Dearborn to Perry, 6 July 1813, Perry Papers, WLCL.

30. Perry to Magrath, 30 July, Perry to Turner, 2 September 1813, Order Book, Perry Papers, WLCL; Perry to Jones, 2 September 1813, Records of the Dept. of Navy, Master Commandant, 1813, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as NA). On Magrath’s career see Christopher McKee, A Gentlemanly and Honorable Profession: The Creation of the U.S. Naval Officer Corps, 1794–1815 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1991), 407–8.

31. Barclay to Yeo, 12 September 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:555–56; “Narrative of . . . the Command of Captain Barclay,” Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:298–315; Malcomson and Malcomson, HMS Detroit, 87. The assignment of Breman (sometimes given as Brumner) to this command is a consequence of our own research. No commander of this vessel is named in Barclay’s after-action report. Until now, all authorities have said the Little Belt’s commander was unknown. See “Report of 77 British Officers, ordered by the Government of the United States to be held as Hostages,” RG 8, I “C” Series, vol. 692, p. 269, Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa.

32. Tyrone G. Martin, “The Constitution Connection,” Journal of Erie Studies 17 (Fall 1988): 39–46.

33. Richardson, War of 1812, 190; Malcomson and Malcomson, HMS Detroit, 87–89; A. T. Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1905), 77; Barclay Court-Martial, 16 September 1814, Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:317.

34. “Sloop of War Lawrence Journal, 31 July–28 September 1813,” 16–17 August 1813, William V. Taylor Papers, Newport Historical Society, Newport, Rhode Island (hereafter cited as Lawrence Journal [date], NHS). As was the custom of naval log keeping, the day officially began at noon rather than midnight. Thus the activities the morning of the twelfth were recorded in the log for the eleventh.

35. Hambleton Diary, 17 and 22 August 1813, MHS; Dobbins, Battle of Lake Erie, 58–59. Dobbins says the boat was the Otter.

36. Lawrence Journal, 18 August 1813, NHS; Hambleton Diary, 22 August 1813, MHS; Usher Parsons, Battle of Lake Erie ([Providence:] Rhode Island Historical Society, 1852), 7; Harrison to Armstrong, 22 August 1813, Logan Esarey, ed., Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison, 2 vols. (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Commission, 1922), 2:525–26. Gaines was a future U.S. Army general; McArthur would subsequently become a governor of Ohio; Cass would become governor of Michigan, a senator from that state, and an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for president. They were currently serving as aides to Harrison. Wood was functioning as the equivalent of Harrison’s operations officer. This young West Pointer would be killed in a sortie from Fort Erie, 17 September 1814.

37. L. Hukill (for Harrison) to Perry, 23 June 1813, Perry Papers, WLCL; Harrison to Perry, 5 and 8 July, A. H. Holmes (for Harrison) to Perry, 23 July 1813, Douglas E. Clanin, ed., “The Correspondence of William Henry Harrison and Oliver Hazard Perry, July 5, 1813–July 31, 1815,” Northwest Ohio Quarterly 60 (Autumn 1988): 159–63.

38. Perry to Harrison, 27 July, 5 August, Harrison to Perry, 4 August 1813, Clanin, ed., “Correspondence,” 164–65.

39. Compiled Service Records of Volunteer Soldiers Who Served during the War of 1812, Muster Rolls of Regular Army Organizations—War of 1812, Register of Enlistments in the United States Army, Returns from United States Military Posts, RG 94, NA; War of 1812 Pension Application Files, RG 15, NA; Lee A. Wallace, Jr., “The Petersburg Volunteers,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 82 (October 1974): 480; “Samuel Hambleton’s Account of the Distribution of Prize Money on Lake Erie,” American State Papers: Naval Affairs, 4 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Gales and Seaton, 1832–1861), 1:566–72; Gerard T. Altoff, Deep Water Sailors, Shallow Water Soldiers (Put-in-Bay, Ohio: The Perry Group, 1993).

40. B. G. Orr, contractor’s report, 7 September, Harrison to Armstrong, 8 September 1813, Esarey, ed., Messages and Letters, 2:536–38; Skaggs, “Joint Operations.” Dobbins says this invasion plan was deemed “impracticable” and abandoned, but there is nothing in the record to indicate this was the case. Instead, the battle of Lake Erie eliminated the risk that Harrison and Perry contemplated. Dobbins and the Ohio were absent from Put-in-Bay the last days before the battle, and he may not have remembered the situation correctly. Dobbins, Battle of Lake Erie, 65–66. Elliott recalled that he and Perry contemplated a night raid in the Schenectady boats that would burn the British vessels at anchor. (This was reminiscent of Stephen Decatur’s expedition into Tripoli harbor during the Barbary Wars and of Elliott’s Niagara River raid of a year earlier.) Jesse Duncan Elliott, Speech of Com. Jesse Duncan Elliott, U.S.N., Delivered in Hagerstown, Md. (Philadelphia: G. B. Zieber, 1844), 5–6. After the second reconnaissance of Amherstburg, Perry informed Harrison that the British had armed the Detroit, placed artillery batteries on Blois Blanc Island and the river’s eastern shore, and “shew a disposition to dispute the passage.” Perry was quite apprehensive about an invasion before Barclay’s threat was eliminated, and he informed Harrison on 5 September that he would not attack the British at anchor unless the winds favored his maneuvering close in so that his carronades would have their greatest effectiveness. Perry to Harrison 2 and 5 September 1813, Clanin, ed., “Correspondence,” 166, 168.

41. Lawrence Journal, 21–22 August 1813, NHS.

42. Lewis Bond, “Journal of the Battle and Massacre of River Raisin January 22 & 23, 1813, and of the War of 1812,” Richard C. Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions of the War of 1812 in the Northwest, 10 vols. (Columbus: Ohio Historical Society, 1961–62), 10, pt. 1:204–5.

43. Barclay Court-Martial, 16 September 1814, Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:316–17; Lawrence Journal, 27–29 August 1813, NHS. A complete version of Barclay’s court-martial may also be found in Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions, 4:1–52.

44. Bond, “Journal,” 204–5.

45. N. A. M. Rodger, The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1986), 59.

46. On the importance of drill in unit cohesion see William H. McNeill, “Keeping Together in Time,” MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 7 (Winter 1995): 100–109.

47. Lawrence Journal, 31 August–1 September 1813, NHS. Reflecting the observations of a typical enlisted man seeing the fleet anchored at Amherstburg was this comment: “We found them [the British sailors] preparing for the fun as well as ourselves.” David C. Bunnell, The Travels and Adventures of David C. Bunnell (Palmyra, N.Y.: J. H. Bartles, 1831), 110.

48. Perry to Jones, 2 September, General Order, 9 September 1813, Perry Papers, WLCL; Usher Parsons, “Surgical Account of the Naval engagement on Lake Erie,” Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:553, 562–63. This latter paper was published in New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery 7 (October 1818): 313–16; Seebert J. Goldowsky, Yankee Surgeon: The Life and Times of Usher Parsons (1788–1868) (Boston: Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine and Rhode Island Publications Society, 1988), 32–37.

49. Richardson, War of 1812, 190.

50. Barclay planned to attack the invading force even while he was at a disadvantage, without even the Detroit or the sailor reinforcements. As Procter wrote, “Should a Landing be attempted, it will not be possible to avoid the Risk of an action, tho’ without seamen, and the Enemy’s vessels well manned.” Procter to Prevost, 18 August 1813, MPHSHC, 15:354.

51. “I shall act rather on the defensive, until you can spare a body of Seamen,” Barclay to Yeo, 17 August 1813, Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions, 4:32.

52. Barclay to Yeo, 1 September 1813, Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:267–68; Barclay to Yeo, 6 September 1813, Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions, 4:36–37.

53. Gilmor to Couche, 5 September 1813, Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions, 4:36.

54. Procter to Noah Freer, 6 September 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:552.

55. Barclay to Yeo, 25 August, 6 September 1813, Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions, 4^:35, 37.

56. Baynes to Procter, 20 September 1813, MPHSHC, 15:363. Though this letter was written after the battle of Lake Erie, it is clear that the Kingston headquarters did not yet know of Barclay’s fate and that this was its directive for his conduct, one that he had followed ten days earlier.

57. Brian Lavery, The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War, 1600–1815 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1987), 88–109; Brian Lavery, ed., The Line of Battle: The Sailing Warship, 1650–1840 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1992), 146–63; Frederick C. Drake, “Artillery and Its Influence on Naval Tactics: Reflections on the Battle of Lake Erie,” in William Jeffrey Welsh and David Curtis Skaggs, eds., War on the Great Lakes: Essays Commemorating the 175th Anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1991), 18–21; Gerard T. Altoff, “A Bulldog of a Naval Gun: The Carronade and Its Impact on Lake Erie,” Journal of Erie Studies (forthcoming, 1997).

58. See the Appendix; Drake, “Artillery and Its Influence,” 18–21. A considerable number of questions still exist concerning the armament in both squadrons, particularly the British flotilla. Contemporary and more modern sources vary widely. Most tend to agree that the American flotilla carried fifty-four guns and the British squadron sixty-three. The disagreement for the most part revolves around the number, types, and sizes of guns carried on the smaller American vessels, and the sizes of guns on the British ships. Drake’s comparisons are the most recent and his cogent analysis of British armament has been adapted herein. Two deviations have been made from Drake’s figures pertaining to the U.S. squadron. Drake shows the sloop Trippe carrying a 32-pounder instead of a 24. On 23 August 1813, Perry instructed Sailing Master Thomas C. Almy of the Somers, “You will deliver to the U.S. Sloop Trippe, 35, 24. pd round Shot & 10 stand 24 pd. grape shot” (Perry Order Book, WLCL). The conclusion is obvious—the Trippe carried a 24-pounder, not a 32. Drake also credits the Scorpion with carrying a 24-pounder carronade. Most sources disagree with this assessment, and there is no evidence that any 24-pounder carronades were either on the fleet or at the Erie Naval Station. Chauncey’s return of vessels and guns shows no 24-pounder carronades on Lake Erie (Chauncey to Jones, 10 June 1813, Chauncey Letter Book, WLCL). All other carronades on the fleet were 32-pounders, and to have a single 24, while not impossible, does not fit the pattern. The Scorpion is thus being shown as mounting a 32-pounder long gun and a 32-pounder carronade. Drake’s figure showing American broadside weight remains the same at 936, since the 32 is reduced to a 24 and one 24 is upgraded to a 32, but the figures for all long and carronade broadside metal do change slightly from Drake’s figures. All references hereafter will show the Trippe as mounting a 24-pounder long gun and the Scorpion carrying a 32-pounder carronade.

59. General Order, 20 August 1813, Order Book, Perry Papers, WLCL. The Ohio would be on a supply mission the day of the battle.

60. General Order, 4 September 1813, Order Book, ibid.

61. Dobbins, Battle of Lake Erie, 68–69; Hambleton Diary, 9 September 1813, MHS.

62. Captain Brevoort’s Certificate, 7 November 1818, Elliott, Speech, appendix 7–8.

63. Elliott, Speech, 5.

64. Affidavit of Thomas Brownell, 9 January 1819, Perry Papers, WLCL.

65. Perry Order Book, 4 September 1813, ibid.

66. Tristam Burges, Battle of Lake Erie with Notices of Commodore Elliot[t]’s Conduct in That Engagement (Philadelphia: Wm. Marshall, 1839), 28. A cable is a nautical unit of measurement; in the American navy a cable length was 240 yards, 40 yards longer than the same measurement in the Royal Navy. A series of 1818 affidavits by Perry partisans confirm this quote; see, for instance, Affidavit of Thomas Breese, 31 August 1818, Perry Papers, WLCL. General Order, 4 September 1813, Order Book, ibid., also directs the “½ Cable” interval but says nothing about designated adversaries.

67. The best discussion of this situation is found in James Fenimore Cooper, The Battle of Lake Erie: Or Answers to Messrs. Burges, Duer, and Mackenzie (Cooperstown, N.Y.: H. and E. Phinney, 1843), 16–17. Neither Elliott nor Cooper contends the half-cable-length order was not given, Cooper only contests its meaning. On the other side of the Perry-Elliott debate following the battle of Lake Erie, one finds a similar sentiment in Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, The Life of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1843), 231, when he notes that the first four vessels in Perry’s battle line were “distant from each other about half a cable’s length,” while the trailing vessels “were a little out of their stations astern.” The implication is obvious—the half-cable distance was to separate the American vessels from each other. For a brief discussion of naval tactics see Lavery, ed., Line of Battle, 181–87.

68. Dobbins, Battle of Lake Erie, 68–69. Daniel Turner, commander of the Caledonia, recalled that it “was understood by the American officers before the fight, that it was Capt’n Perry’s intention to bring the enemy to close action as soon as possible.” Affidavit by Daniel Turner, 2 July 1818, Perry Papers, WLCL. Gerry [Gerard] T. Altoff, “Oliver Hazard Perry and the Battle of Lake Erie,” Michigan Historical Review 14 (Fall 1988): 26–57; Altoff, “The Battle of Lake Erie: A Narrative,” in Welsh and Skaggs, eds., War on the Great Lakes, 5–16.

69. Captain Brevoort’s Certificate, 7 November 1818, Elliott, Speech, appendix 7–8. William V. Taylor recalled that Perry wanted “something decisive” to take place before the end of the campaign season and that he formulated plans to attack “the Enemy under the Guns of their own fortifications.” Taylor, Description of the Battle of Lake Erie, 23 June 1818, Perry Papers, WLCL.

70. The most thorough study of the comparative tactical situation is Drake, “Artillery and Its Influence,” 17–29.

71. Other than the conduct of the British squadron during the battle, the major commentary on British plans comes in a Detroit American’s reminiscence, Bond, “Journal,” 204–5. At least three officers of the Niagara believed that the Lady Prevost intended to board them late in the action. See John B. Montgomery to Elliott, 21 February 1821, Henry B. Brevoort to Elliott, 7 November 1818, [Jesse Duncan Elliott], A Review of a Pamphlet Purporting to Be Documents in Relation to the Differences Which Subsisted between the Late Commodore Oliver H. Perry, and Captain Jesse D. Elliott (Boston: H. B. and J. Brewster, 1834), 45, 47; Samuel R. Brown, Views on Lake Erie (Troy, N.Y.: Francis Adancourt, 1814), 8.

72. That is precisely what Perry and Elliott thought after the battle; if this insight was the consequence of information from British officers, they never indicated it. Perry to Elliott, 18 September 1813, in Elliott, Speech, 11–12: “I shall every believe it a premeditated [British] plan to destroy our commanding vessel.” Elliott’s opinion was that “Commodore Barclay’s object was to cripple her [the Lawrence] without delay; at the same time to prevent the Niagara from coming to her assistance; afterwards to cripple the Niagara, and then to make easy prey of the rest.” A Citizen of New York [Russell Jarvis], A Biographical Notice of Com. Jesse D. Elliott (Philadelphia, 1835), 32.

73. Drake, “Artillery and Its Influence,” 29. See also W. A. B. Douglas, “The Honor of the Flag Had Not Suffered: Robert Heriot Barclay and the Battle of Lake Erie,” in Welsh and Skaggs, eds., War on the Great Lakes, 30–37; Drake, “Commodore Sir James Lucas Yeo and Governor General George Prevost: A Study in Command Relations, 1813–14,” in Cogar, ed., New Interpretations, 156–71.

Chapter 5. The Battle of Lake Erie

1. David C. Bunnell, The Travels and Adventures of David C. Bunnell (Palmyra, N.Y.: J. H. Bartles, 1831), 110–11.

2. Jesse Duncan Elliott, Speech of Com. Jesse Duncan Elliott, U.S.N., Delivered in Hagerstown, Md. (Philadelphia: G. B. Zieber, 1844), appendix 11.

3. Barclay to Yeo, 12 September 1813, William S. Dudley, ed., The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History, 2 vols. to date (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1985–92), 2:555; Hambleton Diary, MS 983, Maryland Historical Society (hereafter cited as MHS), 12 October 1813; Usher Parsons, “Diary Kept during the Expedition to Lake Erie under Captain O. H. Perry, 1812–1814,” Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence (hereafter cited as RIHS), 10 September 1813.

4. In describing the battle, we have relied on a variety of primary and secondary sources. They will be subsequently cited only when a variant opinion of the event appears in one account or the other.

The principal firsthand accounts of the battle are the Perry Papers, William L. Clements Library (hereafter cited as WLCL), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; James Cochrane, “The War in Canada, 1812–1814” (undated MS, ca. 1840, Welch Regiment Museum, Cardiff Castle, South Wales), folios 50–55; Frank Allaben, ed., “The Log Book of the ‘Lawrence,’” Journal of American History 8 (January 1914): 111–21; Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:554–62; Hambleton Diary, MHS; [Jesse Duncan Elliott], A Review of a Pamphlet Purporting to Be Documents in Relation to the Differences Which Subsisted between the Late Commodore Oliver H. Perry, and Captain Jesse D. Elliott (Boston: H. B. and J. Brewster, 1834); Elliott, Speech, 6–13, and appendices; “Lake Erie Court-Martial Papers,” William Wood, ed., Select British Documents of the Canadian War of 1812, Publications of the Champlain Society, vols. 13–16, 4 vols. (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1920–28), 2:289–319; John C. Fredriksen, ed., “‘A Grand Moment for Our Beloved Commander’: Sailing Master William V. Taylor’s Account of the Battle of Lake Erie,’’ Journal of Erie Studies 17 (Fall 1988): 113–22; Parsons, “Diary,” RIHS; Parsons, Battle of Lake Erie ([Providence: Rhode Island Historical Society], 1852); Bunnell, Travels; W. W. Dobbins, History of the Battle of Lake Erie (Erie, Penn.: Ashby Printing Co., 1913), 8–10; Frank H. Severance, ed., “The Dobbins Papers,” Publications of the Buffalo Historical Society 7 (1905): 257–379.

Secondary accounts written during the antebellum years include William James, A Full and Correct Account of the Chief Naval Occurrences of the Late War between Great Britain and the United States of America (London: T. Egerton, 1817); James Fenimore Cooper, The History of the Navy of the United States of America, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1839), 2:368–405; Cooper, The Battle of Lake Erie: Or Answers to Messrs. Burges, Duer, and Mackenzie (Cooperstown, N.Y.: H. and E. Phinney, 1843); Cooper, Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers, 2 vols. (Auburn, N.Y.: J. C. Derby, 1846), 2:146–262; [Russell Jarvis], A Biographical Notice of Com. Jesse D. Elliott (Philadelphia, 1835); Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, The Life of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1843); Tristam Burges, Battle of Lake Erie with Notices of Commodore Elliot[t]’s Conduct in That Engagement (Philadelphia: Wm. Marshall, 1839); John Richardson, Richardson’s War of 1812, ed. Alexander C. Casselman (1842; reprint, Toronto: Historical Publishing Co., 1902).

The standard modern studies include Theodore Roosevelt, The Naval War of 1812 (New York: Putnam, 1893), 254–375; A. T. Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812, 2 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1905), 2:62–107; Leonard F. Guttridge and Jay D. Smith, The Commodores (1969; reprint, Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1986), 219–36; Gerard T. Altoff, “The Battle of Lake Erie: A Narrative,” and Frederick C. Drake, “Artillery and Its Influence on Naval Tactics: Reflections on the Battle of Lake Erie,” in William Jeffrey Welsh and David Curtis Skaggs, eds., War on the Great Lakes: Essays Commemorating the 175th Anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1991), 5–29; Altoff, “Oliver Hazard Perry and the Battle of Lake Erie,” Michigan Historical Review 14 (Fall 1988): 26–57; Altoff, “The Perry-Elliott Controversy,” Northwest Ohio Quarterly 60 (Autumn 1988): 135–52; Michael A. Palmer, “A Failure of Command, Control, and Communications: Oliver Hazard Perry and the Battle of Lake Erie,” Journal of Erie Studies 17 (Fall 1988): 7–26; Thomas Malcomson and Robert Malcomson, HMS Detroit: The Battle for Lake Erie (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1990); Walter P. Rybka, “The Battle of Lake Erie Examined from a Shipmaster’s Perspective” (unpublished manuscript, Erie, Pa.: Flagship Niagara, 1994). The latter was originally a paper submitted by Captain Rybka for a class at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.

Biographical accounts include Charles J. Dutton, Oliver Hazard Perry (New York: Longmans, Green, 1935); Richard Dillon, We Have Met the Enemy, Oliver Hazard Perry: Wilderness Commodore (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978); Edwin P. Hoyt, The Tragic Commodore: The Story of Oliver Hazard Perry (London: Abelard-Schuman, 1966); John K. Mahon, “Oliver Hazard Perry: Savior of the Northwest,” in James C. Bradford, ed., Command Under Sail: Makers of the American Naval Tradition, 1775–1850 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1985), 126–46; W. A. B. Douglas, “The Honor of the Flag Had Not Suffered: Robert Heriot Barclay and the Battle of Lake Erie,” in Welsh and Skaggs, War on the Great Lakes, 30–40; Robert Buckie, “‘His Majesty’s Flag Has Not Been Tarnished’: The Role of Robert Heriot Barclay,” Journal of Erie Studies 17 (Fall 1988): 85–102; Lawrence J. Friedman and Skaggs, “Jesse Duncan Elliott and the Battle of Lake Erie: The Issue of Mental Stability,” Journal of the Early Republic 10 (Winter 1990): 493–516; Allan Westcott, “Commodore Jesse D. Elliott: A Stormy Petrel of the Navy,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 54 (September 1928): 773–81; Seebert J. Goldowsky, Yankee Surgeon: The Life and Times of Usher Parsons (1788–1868) (Boston: Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine and Rhode Island Publications Society, 1988).

5. Notice of this conversation first appears in Mackenzie, Life of Perry, 1:225. Taylor himself wrote at least three separate accounts of events on Lake Erie, and this conversation was not mentioned, nor has it been found in other contemporary accounts. Mackenzie did have access to a number of Perry’s contemporaries and to Taylor himself, and may have heard it firsthand. Regardless of whether this version of the conversation took place, Perry ordered the alteration in course. See Fredriksen, ed., ‘“A Grand Moment,”’ 113–22, and Taylor affidavit, Perry Papers, WLCL.

6. Taylor affidavit, Perry Papers, WLCL; Severance, ed., “The Dobbins Papers,” 343; Allaben, ed., “Log Book,” 119. Barclay’s squadron actually embodied two ships, one brig, two schooners, and one sloop. The Detroit and Queen Charlotte were three-masted square-rigged ships, the General Hunter was a two-masted square-rigged brig, the Lady Prevost and Chippawa were two-masted fore-and-aft-rigged schooners, and the Little Belt was a single-masted sloop. When first observed by the Americans from a distance, the large schooner Lady Prevost was mistaken for a brig, and that error was thereafter perpetuated via the final portion of Perry’s famous “We have met the enemy and they are ours” report.

7. Elliott, Speech, 6.

8. Parsons, “Diary,” RIHS; Allaben, ed., “Log Book,” 120. It is not known for certain whether cannon locks were used on Perry’s ships. The locks for cannon were similar to and operated on the same flint and steel principle as the musket lock. Ignition was slightly faster and more reliable than using slow match. In a letter to Alexander Slidell Mackenzie dated 16 January 1841, William V. Taylor wrote that he could not recollect for certain if the Lake Erie fleet used cannon locks, but his impression was that they did. Fredriksen, ed., “‘A Grand Moment,’” 118–19. Earlier that year Chauncey ordered cannon locks for use on Lake Ontario, but no documentation has been unearthed indicating that any were shipped to Lake Erie. Even if locks were in use, slow match would have been available for backup. The British had no cannon locks and insufficient or ineffective slow match, so they had to fire their cannon with pistols, a decided disadvantage. Malcomson and Malcomson, HMS Detroit, 88–89. It is not known if boarding nets were rigged, or if nets were fixed above the main deck to prevent gear from the tops from falling on those fighting below. However, given the wound Purser Hambleton and others received from falling equipment, it is doubtful if the American flotilla rigged its nets.

9. Hambleton Diary, 12 October 1813, MHS.

10. Kenneth Poolman, Guns Off Cape Ann (London: Rand, McNally and Co., 1961), 120; Anthony Price, Eyes of the Fleet: A Popular History of Frigates and Frigate Captains, 1793–1815 (New York: Norton, 1990), 250–64.

11. Parsons, “Diary,” RIHS; Hambleton Diary, 12 October 1813, MHS; Taylor to Mackenzie, 16 January 1841, Fredriksen, ed., “‘A Grand Moment,’” 118–19. See also Tyrone G. Martin, “The Constitution Connection,” Journal of Erie Studies 17 (Fall 1988): 39–46. There were at least six veterans of the Constitutions victory over HMS Java in the Lawrence’s crew and four “Constitutions” on the Niagara. Eight others served on the Caledonia, Trippe, Ariel, and Scorpion.

12. Bunnell, Travels, 113.

13. Hambleton Diary, 12 October 1813, MHS; Parsons, “Diary,” RIHS.

14. Severance, ed., “Dobbins Papers,” 345.

15. Cooper, History of the Navy, 2:402. Cooper’s defense of Perry’s dispositions is based primarily upon a supposition that Barclay wanted to avoid combat, that he would escape as Yeo had done, rather than fight. There is no credible evidence that this was the British plan, and considerable that Barclay felt compelled to engage the Americans.

16. The most detailed analysis of the tracks of the flagships is found in Rybka, “Battle of Lake Erie Examined,” in which he develops a chart estimating the most likely track by averaging the various accounts. See our map entitled “Route of Flagships.”

17. The exact nature of this signal is in dispute. In his after-action report Perry stated, “I made sail, and directed the other vessels to follow, for the purpose of closing with the Enemy.” Perry to Jones, 13 September 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:557. Elliott contended the signal was “to engage as you come up, every one against his opponent, in the line as before designated.” Cooper, Battle of Lake Erie, 44 (emphasis is Cooper’s). See also Palmer, “A Failure of Command.”

18. Brought the vessel into the wind without changing tack by putting the helm down; by luffing Perry brought the Lawrence’s course parallel to that of the Detroit so that he could fire his carronade broadside into the Royal Navy vessel.

19. Parsons, “Diary,” RIHS.

20. Bunnell, Travels, 113–17, quote on 115.

21. Hambleton Diary, 12 October 1813, MHS; Parsons, “Diary,” 10 and 11 September 1813, RIHS; War of 1812 Pension Application Files, RG 15, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as NA).

22. Parsons, “Diary,” RIHS.

23. Parsons, Discourse, 12–13.

24. Bunnell, Travels, 116–17.

25. War of 1812 Pension Application Files, RG 15, NA.

26. MG 24, G56–72, National Archives of Canada, Ottawa.

27. Julian S. Corbett, Fighting Instructions, 1530–1816 (1905; reprint, New York: Burt Franklin, 1967), 268.

28. Elliott, Speech, appendix 11.

29. Barclay to Yeo, 12 September 1813, Dudley, Naval War of 1812, 2:555–57.

30. Lieutenant Stokoe testified that it was the Caledonia’s guns that inflicted the most damage on the Queen Charlotte, not those of the Niagara. “Lake Erie Court-Martial Papers,” Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:313.

31. Brian Tunstall, Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail: The Evolution of Fighting Tactics, 1650–1815 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1990), 4, 42, 204–10.

32. Elliott later wrote: “Observing the Queen Charlotte bear up from our fire, I determined to run through the line after her, and directed the weather braces to be manned for that purpose.” Elliott, Speech, 6–7. Webster testified in 1815 that the Queen Charlotte broke the line of battle “about half an hour after the Niagara commenced firing,” or about 1300 hours, since Webster said his vessel began firing about ten minutes after the Lawrence fired her first carronade volley at 1215. “Minutes of a Court of Enquiry,” in [Elliott], Review of a Pamphlet, 33–34. She also nearly exhausted her 12-pounder ammunition, and Elliott, as the Niagara was passing the Lawrence, ordered Purser Humphrey Magrath into a small boat to procure more rounds from the flagship. Since Perry boarded the Niagara at this time, it is doubtful Magrath ever completed this expedition. Elliott, Speech, 7.

33. Corbett, Fighting Instructions, and Tunstall, Naval Warfare, passim. Because so many of the great admirals of the age of fighting sail often found their subordinates not fully supporting their commander, we are not willing to go as far as historian Michael A. Palmer, who argued, “If his subordinates failed to support him, it was because Perry failed to exercise his functions as commander.” Palmer, “A Failure of Command,” 8.

34. Elliott, Speech, 7–8. There is deliberate ambiguity as to the time both the Queen Charlotte and the Niagara broke from their original line of battle positions in a letter by six Niagara officers to the secretary of the navy, 13 October 1813, [Elliott], Review of a Pamphlet, 40–41.

35. Cooper, Battle of Lake Erie, 44 (emphasis is Cooper’s). Elliott rationalized: “The line [of battle] once formed, no captain has a right to change, without authority, or a signal from the commanding vessel. The crisis had arrived, in my opinion; when, at the risk of losing my own head, I changed the order of battle.” Elliott, Speech, 9 n.

36. Samuel R. Brown, Views on Lake Erie (Troy, N.Y.: Francis Adancourt, 1814), 10.

37. Forrest to Matthew C. Perry, 29 July 1821, Perry Papers, WLCL; Dobbins, Battle of Lake Erie, 130–31. When the commodore returned to the Lawrence after the action, he inquired of the status of his brother. He was found asleep in his hammock, exhausted from the ordeal of the day. Young Alexander Perry’s death in 1822 while trying to rescue a drowning seaman may have contributed to the development of the erroneous tradition of his being in the gig with his brother. After this heroic death, few would want to discount the myth of Alexander Perry having handled the cutter’s tiller in the battle of Lake Erie.

38. There are two Brevoort versions of this conversation, Brevoort to James S. Swearingen, 1 November, and Affidavit of Brevoort, 7 November 1818, which should be viewed in context with the Affidavit of Boatswain Peter Barry of Niagara, 14 May 1821, in Elliott, Speech, appendix 7–8. Elliott’s version of the exchange is much more favorable to himself. In reply to Elliott’s question regarding the situation on the Lawrence, Perry replied: “Cut all to pieces,—the victory’s lost,—every thing’s gone! I’ve been sacrificed by the damned gun boats.” Elliott said he then replied: “No, sir, victory is yet on our side. I have a most judicious position, and my shot are taking great effect. You tend to my battery, and I will bring up the gun-boats.” “Do so,” said Perry, “for Heaven’s sake.” Elliott, Speech, 7.

39. Perry to Jones, 13 September 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:558.

40. Perry to Jones, 13 September 1813, ibid., 557–58.

41. W. V. Taylor to Abby Taylor, 15 September, U. Parsons to Wm. Parsons, 22 September 1813, Parsons, “Surgical Account,” Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:559–63.

42. Elliott, Speech, 8; “Lake Erie Court-Martial Papers,” Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:297, 314; William Brady, War of 1812 Pension Application Files, RG 15, NA.

43. Encumbrances aloft in her masts, sails, and rigging.

44. War of 1812 Pension Application Files, RG 15, NA.

45. Ibid.

46. Elliott, Speech, 8–9, appendix 11.

47. Ibid., 9. One must always take Elliott’s version of such events with skepticism, since he had a vested interest in denigrating Perry’s reputation.

48. Perry to Harrison, Perry to Jones, 10 September 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:553–54. Barclay’s squadron actually embodied two ships, one brig, two schooners, and one sloop. See note 6 above.

Chapter 6. Denouement

1. Lewis Bond, “Journal of the Battle and Massacre of River Raisin January 22 & 23, 1813, and of the War of 1812,” Richard C. Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions of the War of 1812 in the Northwest, 10 vols. (Columbus: Ohio Historical Society, 1961–62), 10, pt. 1:204–5.

2. Samuel R. Brown, Views on Lake Erie (Troy, N.Y.: Francis Adancourt, 1814), 8.

3. Usher Parsons, “Diary Kept during the Expedition to Lake Erie under Captain O. H. Perry, 1812–1814,” Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence (hereafter cited as RIHS); Parsons, Battle of Lake Erie ([Providence: Rhode Island Historical Society], 1852); Usher Parsons to William Parsons, 22 September 1813, “Surgeon Usher Parsons’s Account of the Battle of Lake Erie,” William S. Dudley, ed., The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History, 2 vols. to date (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1985–92), 2:561–65; Seebert J. Goldowsky, Yankee Surgeon: The Life and Times of Usher Parsons (1788–1868) (Boston: Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine and Rhode Island Publications Society, 1988), 43–45.

4. W. W. Dobbins, History of the Battle of Lake Erie (Erie, Penn.: Ashby Printing Co., 1913), 97–98.

5. Samuel Hambleton Diary, MS 983, Maryland Historical Society (hereafter cited as MHS), 12 October 1813; Robert H. Barclay, “A List of Killed and Wounded,” Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions, 4:39–42.

6. Brown, Views on Lake Erie, 8–9. At 0500 on 13 September, a strong storm with gale-force winds from the west caused the Queen Charlotte to drag anchor. The Queen Charlotte was blown into the badly damaged Detroit, and the masts of both ships, with the exception of the Queen Charlotte’s foremast, toppled overboard. Frank Allaben, ed., “The Log Book of the ‘Lawrence,’” Journal of American History 8 (January 1914): 111–21.

7. Procter to Rottenburg, 12 September 1812, William Wood, ed., Select British Documents of the Canadian War of 1812, Publications of the Champlain Society, vols. 13–16, 4 vols. (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1920–28), 2:272–73.

8. John Richardson, Richardson’s War of 1812, ed. Alexander C. Casselman (Toronto: Historical Publishing Co., 1902), 205–6.

9. C. H. Snider, ed., Leaves from the War Log of the Nancy (n.p.: Huron Historical Development Council, Ontario Department of Tourism and Information, n.d.), 47; HMS Nancy and the War of 1812 (n.p.: Parks Branch, Ontario Department of Lands and Forests, 1963), 8; Alexander Mackintosh to Captain Bullock, 16 October, Bullock to Colonel Baynes, 21 October 1813, Henry Proctor Certificate, 22 November 1813, Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society Historical Collections, vol. 15 (Lansing, Mich.: Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Co., 1919), 412–13, 421–22, 446. Captain Richard Bullock of the 41st Foot, commanding Fort Michilimackinac, was so desperate for supplies that he risked sending canoes across Lake Huron to Matchedash Bay in a stormy October season. He pleaded with the government to reinforce his tiny garrison the following spring and to have several gunboats and a stockade built at Matchedash Bay on the Canadian side of Lake Huron to protect his supply line to the east. Matchedash Bay is located on the southeast side of Georgian Bay at the outlet of the Severn River. It is on the easiest transport route for goods and personnel from Toronto, via Lake Simcoe into Lake Huron.

10. Barclay to Yeo, 12 September 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:555–56.

11. Inglis to Barclay, 10 September 1813, ibid., 554–55.

12. Barclay to Yeo, 12 September 1813, ibid., 556–57.

13. Forrest to Matthew C. Perry, 29 July 1821, Usher Parson’s Affidavit, 2 July 1818, Hambleton to O. H. Perry, 15 July 1818, Perry Papers, William L. Clements Library (hereafter cited as WLCL), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

14. Perry to Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Crowninshield, [copy, 1818], ibid.

15. Perry to Jones, 13 September 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:557–59.

16. Hambleton to Perry, 28 October 1813, Perry Papers, WLCL.

17. Hambleton to Perry, 15 July 1818, ibid.

18. Perry to Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Crowninshield, [copy, 1818], ibid.

19. Harrison to Perry, 31 July 1815, Douglas E. Clanin, ed., “The Correspondence of William Henry Harrison and Oliver Hazard Perry, July 5,1813-July 31, 1815,” Northwest Ohio Quarterly 60 (Autumn 1988): 173; Harrison to McArthur, 15, 17, and 20 September 1813, Duncan McArthur Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Perry to Jones, 20 September 1813, Institute for Great Lakes Research, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio (hereafter cited as IGLR); Jesup to John Armstrong, 1 July, 1 August 1813, Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions, 7:2, 51; Robert B. McAfee, History of the Late War in the Western Country (Lexington, Ky.: Worsley and Smith, 1816), 362–65.

20. McAfee, History of the Late War, 365–69. A draft of Harrison’s order in Major Wood’s handwriting probably indicates he served for Harrison as a modern operations officer. See George W. Cullum, Campaigns of the War of 1812–15, against Great Britain (New York: J. Miller, 1879), 118 n.

21. McAfee, History of the Late War, 369.

22. Harrison’s General Orders, 27 September 1813, Logan Esarey, ed., Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison, 2 vols. (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1922), 2:547; Perry to Officers in Charge of Prime Vessels, 22 September 1813, Order Book, Lake Erie, 1813, Perry Papers, WLCL; Perry to Jones [ca. 27] September 1813, IGLR; Dobbins, Battle of Lake Erie, 136–37.

23. Eleazer D. Wood, Journal of the Northwestern Campaign of 1812–1813, ed. Robert B. Boehm and Randall L. Buchman (Defiance, Ohio: Defiance College, 1975), 31.

24. Perry to Jones, [post 27] September 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:569.

25. Richardson, War of 1812, 222–34; McAfee, History of the Late War, 377–78; “The McAfee Papers—Book and Journal of Robt. B. McAfee’s Mounted Company, in Col. Richard M. Johnson’s Regiment,” Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society 26 (May 1928): 119–20; Alec R. Gilpin, The War of 1812 in the Old Northwest (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1958), 214–21; [C. O.] Ermatinger, “The Retreat of Proctor and Tecumseh,” Ontario Historical Society Papers and Records 17 (1919): 11–21. An attempt to redeem Procter’s reputation may be found in S. Antal, “Myths and Facts Concerning General Procter,” Ontario History 79 (September 1987): 256–59.

26. Order Book, Lake Erie, 1813, passim, for September and October, quotes from Perry to J. E. McDonald, to Thomas Holdup, and to Senat, 2 October, Perry to Jones, 20 October 1813, Perry Papers, WLCL; Harrison to Armstrong, 22 September, 9 October 1813, Esarey, ed., Messages and Letters, 2:545, 559, 570.

27. For a comparison of interservice cooperation on Lakes Erie and Ontario, see David Curtis Skaggs, “Joint Operations during the Detroit-Lake Erie Campaign, 1813,” and William S. Dudley, “Commodore Isaac Chauncey and U.S. Joint Operations on Lake Ontario, 1813–14,” in William B. Cogar, ed., New Interpretations in Naval History: Selected Papers from the Eighth Naval History Symposium (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1989), 105–39.

28. Sinclair to John H. Cocke, 30 November 1813, John Hartwell Cocke Collection, Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville (hereafter cited as UVA).

29. Procter to de Rottenburg, 23 October 1813, Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:323–27; Richardson, War of 1812, 214; Harrison to Armstrong, 9 October 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:575; McAfee, History of the Late War, 373–400. For secondary accounts see George F. G. Stanley, The War of 1812: Land Operations, Canadian War Museum Historical Publication No. 18 (Ottawa: National Museums of Canada, 1983), 201–24; Dennis Carter-Edwards, “The Battle of Lake Erie and Its Consequences: Denouement of the British Right Division and Abandonment of the Western District to American Troops, 1813–1815,” in William Jeffrey Welsh and David Curtis Skaggs, eds., War on the Great Lakes: Essays Commemorating the 175th Anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1991), 30–40; Katherine B. Coutts, “Thamesville and the Battle of the Thames,” and Victor Lauriston, “The Case for General Procter,” in Morris Zaslow, ed., The Defended Border: Upper Canada and the War of 1812 (Toronto: Macmillan, 1964), 114–29; John Sugden, Tecumseh’s Last Stand (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985); R. David Edmunds, Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership (Boston: Little, Brown, 1985), 198–212.

30. Hambleton Diary, 12 October 1813, MHS. For a summary of Hambleton’s recollections of attitudes among the officers of the Lawrence, see Hambleton to Perry, 15 July 1818, Perry Papers, WLCL.

31. On the two letters and Elliott’s efforts to modify the printed versions to appear even more favorable toward him, see Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, The Life of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1843), 2:283–85. The exact date of Elliott’s letter is in dispute. Elliott contends it was written on 19 September, while Perry’s biographer Alexander Mackenzie argues it was written on the eighteenth or maybe even the seventeenth. The significance of the dating concerns the machinations Hambleton was discovering.

32. Hambleton Diary, 12 October 1813, MHS.

33. Jesse Duncan Elliott, Speech of Com. Jesse Duncan Elliott, U.S.N., Delivered in Hagerstown, Md. (Philadelphia: G. B. Zieber, 1844), appendix 13.

34. [Russell Jarvis], A Biographical Notice of Com. Jesse D. Elliott (Philadelphia, 1835), 124–26. That Elliott probably drafted the letter is indicated in one he wrote to the secretary of the navy, 1 January 1814, in which he admitted writing a letter that he gave to his ship’s officers for their “examination and correction.” Elliott’s draft went unmailed, but doubtless it constituted the major part of the one sent by the Niagara’s officers. Ibid., appendix 12–13.

35. Hambleton Diary, 30 November 1813, MHS.

36. Hambleton Diary, 30 November, 20 December 1813, MHS.

37. Elliott to Edward N. Cox, 28 December 1813, Perry Papers, WLCL.

38. Hambleton Diary, 9 December 1813, 1 January, 11 February 1814, MHS.

39. Sinclair to Cocke, 16 May 1814, Cocke Collection, UVA.

40. Hambleton to Perry, 1 and 4 November, Turner to Perry, 30 December 1813, 25 March 1814, Perry Papers, WLCL.

41. Hambleton Diary, 20 December 1813, MHS; Hambleton to Perry, 2 December 1813, 11 February 1814, Perry Papers, WLCL. A variant of the flag incident appeared in [Jarvis], Biographical Notice, 192.

42. Hambleton to Perry, 11 December 1813, Perry Papers, WLCL.

43. Hambleton to Perry, 28 October 1813, ibid.

44. [Jarvis], Biographical Notice, appendix 16.

45. Hambleton to Perry, 28 October, 1 and 25 November, Turner to Perry, 30 October 1813, Perry Papers, WLCL.

46. Brevoort statement, 1 November 1813, [Jarvis], Biographical Notice, 127–28. For a detailed discussion of Brevoort’s comments see note 38 for Chapter 5. Conkling statement undated, but probably 1813. Ibid., 459. Conkling’s attitude may have been influenced by Perry’s not mentioning his conduct in the official dispatch. Subsequent to the winter of 1813–14, Elliott received statements moderately supporting him from D. C. Nicholas, 22 January 1821, Hugh N. Page, 20 May 1821, John B. Montgomery, 11 February 1821, S. Wardwell Adams, 25 November 1818, John L. Cummins, 25 November 1818, Dr. Robert L. Barton, 24 April 1821, and Peter Berry, 14 May 1821, ibid., 454–65.

47. Turner Affidavit, Elliott, Speech, appendix 10 (emphasis in Elliott’s text).

48. [Jarvis], Biographical Notice, 163–77.

49. Hambleton to Perry, 11 and 18 November, 11 and 16 December 1813, Perry Papers, WLCL.

50. William T. Blair, The Michael Shoemaker Book (Scranton, Pa.: International Textbook Press, 1924), 724; Charles P. Galbreath, “The Battle of Lake Erie in Ballad and History,” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications 20 (1911): 418–23.

51. Erie Station Muster Rolls, Records of the Department of the Navy, RG 45, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as NA).

52. Parsons, “Diary,” RIHS.

53. Pension Records, RG 15, NA.

54. Principal sources used by researcher Douglas L. Hendry of Ottawa, Canada, to acquire this data include copies of discharge certificates of men admitted to pension, 41st Foot, WO 97; Casualty Return, 1809–1816, WO 25/2206, and Discharge Certificate Copies, WO 97, both for the Royal Newfoundland Fencibles; and Certificates issued to men of the Provincial Marine eligible for land for services in the War of 1812. All in the Public Record Office, Kew, Surrey, England. See Douglas L. Hendry, Charles C. Morrisey, and David Curtis Skaggs, “British Personnel at the Battle of Lake Erie,” Inland Seas (forthcoming, 1997).

55. Gregory Evans Dowd, A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity, 1745–1815 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), 184.

56. Robert S. Allen, His Majesty’s Indian Allies: British Indian Policy in the Defense of Canada, 1774–1815 (Toronto: Dandruff Press, 1992), 141–66; Colleen G. Calloway, Crown and Calumet: British-Indian Relations, 1783–1815 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987); Gilpin, War of 1812; Harold D. Langley, “The Quest for Peace in the War of 1812,” in Welsh and Skaggs, eds., War on the Great Lakes, 68–77; Fred L. Engleman, The Peace of Christmas Eve (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, [1962]).

57. W. A. B. Douglas, “The Honor of the Flag Had Not Suffered: Robert Heriot Barclay and the Battle of Lake Erie,” in Welsh and Skaggs, eds., War on the Great Lakes, 30–40, quote on 35; Robert Buckie, ‘“His Majesty’s Flag Has Not Been Tarnished’: The Role of Robert Heriot Barclay,” Journal of Erie Studies 17 (Fall 1988): 85–102.

58. “Lake Erie Court-Martial Papers,” Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:289–319, quote on 318.

59. Douglas, “Honor of the Flag,” 37; A. Blanche Burt, “Captain Robert Heriott Barclay,” Ontario Historical Society Papers and Records 14 (1916): 169–78.

60. William James, A Full and Correct Account of the Chief Naval Occurrences of the Late War between Great Britain and the United States of America (London: T. Egerton, 1817), 283–95.

61. Hambleton to Perry, 19 April 1815, Hambleton Letters, MS 2381, MHS.

62. The court transcripts are reprinted in [Jesse Duncan Elliott], A Review of a Pamphlet Purporting to Be Documents in Relation to the Differences Which Subsisted between the Late Commodore Oliver H. Perry, and Captain Jesse D. Elliott (Boston: H. B. and J. Brewster, 1834), 28–39, with the quote on 39. The focus of the inquiry was on whether Elliott was leaving the scene, not whether his delay in coming forward was appropriate. In reality there was no such testimony in the British court-martial about Elliott’s leaving the scene—a journalist’s summary said this. On the Barclay court-martial proceedings see Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:298–319.

63. H. B. Breckinridge to Elliott, 2 February, John Hall to Elliott, 27 February, George T. Kennon to Elliott, 2 May, Elliott to Perry, 14 May 1818, Perry Papers, WLCL. The Heath-Perry incident is detailed in Mackenzie, Life of Perry, 2:341–48.

64. Perry to Elliott, 18 June 1818, Perry Papers, WLCL.

65. Elliott to Perry, 7 July 1818, ibid.

66. The charges and specifications are reprinted in Mackenzie, Life of Perry, 2:245–53.

67. James Fenimore Cooper, Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers, 2 vols. (Auburn, N.Y.: J. C. Derby, 1846), 2:223; Hazard to Decatur, [?] December 1819, Decatur to Hazard, 28 [?] March 1820, Perry Papers, WLCL. It is probable that the latter letter was written on 20 March, since Decatur was killed on 22 March. A different version of the story is in [Jarvis], Biographical Notice, 220–22, where it is contended that President James Monroe gave the charges to Decatur. But the Hazard letter, noted above, makes clear they were in Perry’s hands prior to his death and that Hazard gave them to Decatur.

68. James Fenimore Cooper, The History of the Navy of the United States of America, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1839), 2:368–405; Cooper, The Battle of Lake Erie: Or Answers to Messrs. Burgess, Duer, and Mackenzie (Cooperstown, N.Y.: H. and E. Phinney, 1843). Cooper’s defense of Elliott is discussed in detail in David Curtis Skaggs, “Aiming at the Truth: James Fenimore Cooper and the Battle of Lake Erie,” Journal of Military History 59 (April 1995): 237–56.

69. Jones to Perry, 21 September 1813, Dudley, ed., Naval War of 1812, 2:560. David Curtis Skaggs review Perry’s combat leadership style in “Creating Small Unit Cohesion: Oliver Hazard Perry at the Battle of Lake Erie,” Armed Forces and Society 23 (Summer 1997).

Appendix

1. R. H. Barclay, “Statement of the Force of His Majesty’s Squadron Employed on Lake Erie,” ca. 6 July, Barclay to J. L. Yeo, 12 September 1813, Francis Purvis testimony, Barclay Court-Martial, 16 September 1814, William Wood, ed., Select British Documents of the Canadian War of 1812, Publications of the Champlain Society, vols. 13–16, 4 vols. (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1920–28), 2:252, 274–277, 315; Barclay, “Statement of the Force of His Majesty’s Squadron employed on Lake Erie,” 29 June, J. L. Yeo, “A List of His Majesty’s Ships, and Vessels on the Lakes in Canada, 15th July 1813,” W. V. Taylor to Abby Taylor, 15 September 1813, William S. Dudley, ed., The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History 2 vols, to date (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1985–92), 2:485, 506, 559.

2. William James, A Full and Correct Account of the Chief Naval Occurrences of the Late War between Great Britain and the United States of America (London: T. Egerton, 1817), 289.

3. Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, The Life of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1843), 1:227; James Fenimore Cooper, Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers (Auburn, N.Y.: J. C. Derby, 1846), 172; Theodore Roosevelt, The Naval War of 1812 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1987), 242–43; Frederick C. Drake, “Artillery and Its Influence on Naval Tactics: Reflections on the Battle of Lake Erie,” in William Jeffrey Welsh and David Curtis Skaggs, eds., War on the Great Lakes: Essays Commemorating the 175th Anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1991), 26; Thomas Malcomson and Robert Malcomson, HMS Detroit: The Battle for Lake Erie (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1990), 87.

4. Barclay, “Statement of the Force,” Wood, ed., Select British Documents, 2:252; Lt. Miller Worsley to his father, 6 October 1814, C. H. Snider, ed., Leaves from the War Log of the Nancy (n.p.: Huron Historical Development Council, Ontario Department of Tourism and Information, n.d.), 47; HMS Nancy and the War of 1812 (n.p.: Parks Branch, Ontario Department of Lands and Forests, 1963), 8.

5. William James, The Naval History of Great Britain, new ed., 6 vols. (London: Harding, Lepard, 1826), 6:862. The discussion in this appendix has been aided by comments from Dr. Kevin Crisman, historical archaeologist at Texas A&M University, in an e-mail message to Skaggs, 8 November 1996.