Oliver Hazard Perry: The Hero of Lake Erie

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And you can learn more by following at What's Up With Hate. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. While the War of 1812 may have ended in a draw, it created some of America's greatest military heroes since the founding of the country and the Revolutionary War itself. From Andrew Jackson to Winfield Scott to George Armistead. But this story deals with the hero of Lake Erie, Oliver Hazard Perry. Here to tell it is Craig Dumé of the Grateful Nation Project.

Take it away, Craig. His middle name was Hazard and his life would prove that his parents made an appropriate choice in that name. Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry became a national hero with his victory in the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. Defeating a British Royal Navy squadron, Perry led the way to American control of Ohio and Michigan territories.

In his battle report, Perry famously wrote, We have met the enemy and they are ours. Perry was born in South Kingston, Rhode Island on August 23, 1785, the oldest of eight children. The first son was named after his paternal grandmother's father and also for his uncle who had recently been lost at sea. His father, Christopher Raymond Perry, served as a privateer during the American Revolution. With no established navy, the new Continental Congress commissioned merchant ships and encouraged patriotic private citizens to harass British shipping while risking their lives and resources for financial gain. Young Oliver Perry spent part of his youth sailing with his father and became a midshipman by the time he turned 13 and participated in his first sea battle off the coast of Haiti during the Haitian Revolution in the late 1700s. Perry would also serve his country in the U.S. Navy against the Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean. He'd serve on some of the young U.S. Navy's most famous ships, the Adams, the Constellation, the Nautilus, the Essex, and the Constitution, Old Ironsides, the oldest commissioned warship in the world that is still afloat. In 1809, Perry supervised the construction of small gunboats in Connecticut, a duty he considered tedious until in April 1809, when he received his first seagoing command, the 14-gun schooner dubbed Revenge. Perry's first command ended badly on January 8, 1811. While surveying harbors along Block Island Sound, off his home state of Rhode Island, the Revenge was sailing in heavy fog off Watchill Point. The vessel struck a reef and sank.

A court-martial cleared Perry of any fault, instead blaming the schooner's pilot. Not yet three decades removed from the Revolutionary War, the United States again declared war on Great Britain on June 18, 1812. Disputes over territorial expansion, trade restrictions, and British impressment of American seamen forced the young country to take on the greatest naval power in the world. With the American Navy being short on ships and experienced officers, the British Royal Navy made a regular practice of taking seamen from American merchant vessels by force to fill out the crews of their frequently undermanned ships. In 1812, the American naval fleet stood at just 16 warships, compared to the 500 warships in service for the Royal Navy. Perry's rise to national fame came on September 10, 1813 in the Battle of Lake Erie, also known as the Battle of Put-In Bay. He'd been sent to Erie, Pennsylvania the prior February to complete construction of a squadron to challenge British control of the Great Lakes. By September, he had a fleet of 10 small vessels and was ready to engage. His new fleet was superior to the enemy's, but only in short-range firepower. When he encountered six British warships under the command of Captain Robert Barclay, light winds prevented him from closing quickly enough to leverage his short-range advantage. Perry's flagship, the Lawrence, suffered heavy damage and was disabled as the battle began.

He transferred to the Niagara along with his Don't Give Up the Ship banner. Boldly sailing directly into Barclay's British fleet, Niagara fired broadside on the Royal Navy ships, winning the Battle of Lake Erie within 15 minutes. In a report to Major General and later U.S. President William Henry Harrison, Perry wrote the famous message that would be immortalized in U.S. Navy history.

We have met the enemy and they are ours. The victory helped ensure American control of Lake Erie, forced the British to abandon Detroit, and led to U.S. expansion in the Ohio and Michigan territories. Promoted to Captain, Perry was chosen to lead an important diplomatic mission in June 1819 to negotiate an anti-piracy agreement in Angostura, Venezuela.

Yellow fever was said to be a problem in the capital city. Captain Perry completed his mission, but Captain Perry came down with chills and a fever, and Oliver Hazard Perry died from yellow fever on August 23, 1819, on his 34th birthday. The War of 1812 basically ended in a draw with the Treaty of Ghent ratified by both parties, in essence returning to the state that had existed before the war and restoring all conquered territory. Both sides could claim victory, but the new American nation had made a powerful statement about its own sovereignty. And by taking on, for a second time, the most powerful military on earth, Americans had earned the respect of the dominant European powers.

It was a major step in ending European colonization of the Western Hemisphere. The war also gave the new nation some of its most enduring symbols. As legend has it, a meat packer named Samuel Wilson in Troy, New York, supplied barrels of beef to the United States Army. He stamped the barrels U.S., and American soldiers referred to the beef as Uncle Sam's. And a poem that would become a patriotic song came from one battle in the War of 1812, the American victory at Fort McHenry in Baltimore. That song, The Star-Spangled Banner, would eventually become our national anthem. And old iron sides and the phrase, don't give up the ship, still inspire those who serve in what is now the world's most powerful navy. And a special thanks to Craig Dumé of the Grateful Nation Project.

To find out more about them, go to herocards.us. The story of Oliver Hazard Perry and the War of 1812, here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show, we bring you stories of America, stories of us. And it's because of listeners like you that we're able to tell the story of this great and beautiful country every day.

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