Ohio History Journal

SIGNIFICANCE OF PERRY'S VICTORY

SIGNIFICANCE OF PERRY'S VICTORY.

BY ISAAC J. COX.

[On the evening of February 23d, 1910, the Ohio Perry's Victory

Commission, appointed by the Governor of Ohio to make suitable

arrangements for the celebration of Perry's Victory on Lake Erie, Sep-

tember 10, 1913, had a hearing before a special joint meeting of both

houses of the Ohio Assembly. On this occasion Dr. Isaac J. Cox, pro-

fessor of American History in the Cincinnati University and President

of the Ohio Valley Historical Association, delivered the following ad-

dress. - EDITOR. ]

Our second war with Great Britain, usually spoken of as

the "War of 1812," was the struggle of the United States for

industrial and social independence of Europe. Just as the thir-

teen colonies four decades before had thrown off the political

ties which bound them to Europe, so the eighteen states that

in 1812 composed the American Union waged a second war

against Great Britain for the purpose of making real and effec-

tive the independence which they had nominally gained in 1776.

It is this struggle which emphasizes American nationality, and

in all that went to characterize it, with one marked exception,

the Northwest emphasizes, point by point, its main features.

I have just stated that the war was one which emphasized

American nationality, but it will be necessary, at the very outset,

to call attention to certain sectional conditions which arose

during the different years of the struggle. It was during this

period that the New England states grew restive under national

control and paused just short of threatened secession. At this

time the South and the Southwest were absorbed by the prospect

of gaining Florida, of defending Louisiana, or of carrying fili-

bustering warfare into the heart of the Mexican Viceroyalty.

On the Atlantic coast the struggle is divided into petty con-

flicts during which one section after another felt the weight

of British naval supremacy. The capture of Washington and

the defense of Baltimore, predatory ravages on the coast of

(460)

Significance of Perry's Victory

Significance of Perry's Victory. 461

Maine, Virginia and of Georgia, a brilliant series of naval con-

flicts that arouse national spirit but achieve no noteworthy pur-

pose, a series of incompetent exploits along our Great Lake

frontier, savage border warfare in Ohio, Indiana, and the re-

maining portions of the Northwest-these are some of the

distressing features of a conflict which originated in national

desperation but happily, in its outcome found vent in national

expansion and national glorification.

I have stated that the Northwest represented, upon a small

scale, nearly every important feature of this struggle. The

surrender of Detroit bears a close comparison with the igno-

minious defense of Washington City; the struggle to retain

Fort Erie suggests the successful repulse of the British at Bal-

timore. These two events, at the opposite extremes of Lake

Erie, mark out that body of water as the real center of the

conflict with Great Britain in the Northwest. Throughout the

Ohio Valley and the highlands to the east of it there exists a

widespread desire for the conquest of Canada-a desire paral-

leled by the southern determination to obtain the Floridas. The

retaliatory raids around Lakes Erie and Ontario suggest the

coast operations from Maine to Georgia. The Indians of the

Northwest, under British control, form a hostile group more

formidable than the Creeks that terrorized the Southwest. Na-

tional humiliation and national inefficiency, each finds its coun-

terpart within the limits of our section but in one marked

respect, it presents no significant example. There is no Hart-

ford convention in the Northwest; no evidence of New Eng-

land secession can be detected even amidst the discourage-

ments that retarded every campaign. The Northwest Terri-

tory, the first child of the Union, remains true to its parent

in this hour of adversity.

The series of events leading up to Perry's victory need be

only casually mentioned. The fall of Detroit in the fall of

1812 opened Mackinac Island and Fort Dearborn (on the site

of Chicago) to Indian attack, and the abandonment of Wis-

consin naturally followed. The month of calamity in the

latter portion of 1812 led to the deeper gloom of the following

winter when the Raisin river massacre halted Harrison's opera-

462 Ohio Arch

462 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

tions in northern Ohio and rendered the policy of the North-

west one of defense rather than conquest. Later in the year

however, the successful defense of Fort Meigs and Croghan's

brilliant engagement at Fort Stephenson check the tide of Brit-

ish conquest. It was high time that this result was brought

about. The war parties of Indians were carrying on opera-

tions within thirty miles of Louisville, and threatened a rever-

sion to conditions which existed thirty years before, when on

the northern bank of the Ohio white and Indian were contend-

ing with each other for the territory which the new national

government had just opened to settlement. Apparently the

struggle that had marked the years immediately succeeding the

Revolution was to be re-enacted in all of its horror. The

situation illustrates the fact that the conquest of the wilder-

ness, before modern methods of communication were known,

was a most appalling task, involving the prospect that the terri-

tory so hardly won for civilization might at any moment re-

lapse into the possession of its former savage occupants. This

lack of communication was the crowning difficulty of cam-

paigning in the Northwest, and he who successfully solved the

question should of right be twice crowned as victor over the

foe and over the savage wilderness.

It is upon this scene of desolation, incompetence, and well

conceived terror, in the spring of 1813, that young Oliver

Hazard Perry arrives and begins preparations for that victory

which we desire to commemorate. The administration has in-

deed turned its attention toward the Northwest, but its interests

had not been vitalized. William Jones, at the head of the Navy

Department in Washington, was inefficient; Commodore

Chauncey on Lake Ontario, Perry's immediate superior, was

indifferent to the fate of the Northwest. The whole situation,

then, depended upon the genius and energy of the young

Rhode Islander, and well did he execute his formidable task

The mention of Perry's native state suggests comparison be-

tween him and another famous Rhode Island fighter, the

Quaker blacksmith, Nathaniel Greene. Just as Greene restored

order in the confused Commissary Department of the Conti-

nental Army at Valley Forge and breathed a new spirit into

Significance of Perry's Victory

Significance of Perry's Victory. 463

the forces of the South during his Carolina campaigns, so did

Perry bring order out of the chaos of the Northwest and affect

his associates with his indomitable spirit. "Everything from

nothing." - This expression well characterizes his exploit. He

must construct a fleet, and that, too, without regard to the time

element, for haste means victory. To construct this fleet he

must bring the iron from Pittsburg, the tackle from Philadel-

phia, Baltimore, or New York, and munitions of war from

Watertown or Harper's Ferry. He must search for most of

his sailors in the forests of the Northwest; but, luckily for

him, many of the immigrants to that section had not forgotten

the nautical training of early years, and, emerging from their

shaded fastnesses, re-enacted upon the inland waters the ex-

ploits of Revolutionary privateering. The haste that charac-

terized all of these preparations is exemplified in the fact

that what in the morning had been green timber standing upon

its own trunk in the forest, by nightfall was fashioned into the

masts and spars of the embryo fleet. In a way this is emble-

matic of the sudden blossoming maturity of our own nation

because of a like quick and wasteful use of our national re-

sources. Perry's energy as the prime mover in this task is

perhaps best exemplified in the terse phrase of Danton: "De

l'audace, encore de l'audace et toujours de l'audace!"

Within an incredible few weeks the newly constructed

fleet is swinging at anchor behind the breakwater at Presqu'

Isle. Its dauntless captain simply awaits the opportunity for

the fight that he covets. As he paced the deck of the Law-

rence he suggests the intrepid La Salle, the pioneer shipbuilder

of Lake Erie. Just as the suspicious Iroquois blockaded the

"Griffon" a century and a quarter before, so the watchful

Briton prevents his rival from reaching the open sea, where

alone he can fight to advantage. After a long period of delay,

the Englishman Barclay appropriately succumbs to a dinner

invitation, and his couped-up antagonist does not await a sec-

ond opportunity. By a clever strategem his vessels are lifted

across the bar and float freely upon the waters of Lake Erie;

and his rival withdraws to the vicinity of Detroit. The long

blockade broken, Perry adopts the initiative and begins to

464 Ohio Arch

464 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

search for the enemy, with the object of giving him immediate

battle. He thus pursues a positive, instead of a negative course

of action, and by so doing suggests a fair comparison between

American and British policy in this section. From the begin-

ning the American policy had been to go in and occupy the

land; that of the British, to permit it to lie fallow as an Indian

hunting ground. Perry, at the head of his fleet on Lake Erie

searching for his opponent Barclay, exemplifies this idea, and

the coming battle decides in favor of the policy of action.

On the tenth of September, as the two fleets bear down

on each other, the young commodore fittingly displays as his

watchword the charge of the dying Lawrence-"Don't give up

the ship!" In the course of the fight, as he passes from the

deck of his sinking flagship, he appears to be forgetting his

own watchword, but it is only the abandonment of a dis-

mantled hulk, and not the giving up of the fight; for raising his

colors aloft on the Niagara he continues the conflict, and within

a few fateful minutes is penning the thrilling despatch-"We

have met the enemy and they are ours!"

The significance of this message is not the material results

indicated by its closing words - "two ships, two schooners, one

sloop, and one brig"-but the opportunity that is now given

for American arms to undo the shameful effects of Hull's sur-

render. Because of Perry's advance and victory Harrison

could give the order for a forward movement against Detroit.

The occupation of that post by the Americans was followed

by a swift pursuit of the retreating British through Upper Can-

ada, the encounter on the Thames River, and the death of Te-

cumseh, the last of the great Indian organizers. When this

series of events finally cleared the Northwest of foreign in-

vaders, the miserable alliance between the Indians and the

British received its death-blow, and our government began its

more confident, if less just, Indian policy. A second series

of treaties with the Indians at Greenville cemented the definite

alliance between Indian and American and gave a pause to

British diplomats, who at Ghent were demanding the establish-

ment of an Indian protectorate beyond the Ohio River. The

recovery of the Northwest meant the release of the men of Ken-

Significance of Perry's Victory

Significance of Perry's Victory. 465

tucky, who went home from their sister state to the northward.

as in '65 many of them returned from their sister states to the

southward, conscious that they had assisted in preserving the

Union. Outside of the Northwest the effect of the victory

and ensuing campaigns was equally marked. Kentucky and

Tennessee could turn their attention to the defense of the lower

Mississippi and accomplish at New Orleans a more striking,

but not more signal victory than at Put-in-Bay. The encounter

at the latter island inspired McDonald on Lake Champlain to

meet an invading force of Wellington's hitherto victorious vet-

erans. It inspired Scott and Brown and Ripley to the defense

of the Niagara frontier, where the daring of Perry's "Don't-

give-up-the-ship" is matched by Ripley's confident "I-will-try,-

sir." The flag borne over the shot-swept waters of Lake Erie

is matched by its fellow fluttering in the morning light over the

ramparts of Fort McHenry, and the loyalty aroused in the

Northwest by this doughty New Englander served in a meas-

ure to dull the keen edge of New England's later threat of

secession.

The effect of this significant encounter was felt, not merely

within the limits of our own country but in the far off Belgian

town of Ghent, the scene of the treaty which closed the War.

To the haughty demand of the representatives of Great Britain

that no American vessels should be permitted on the Great

Lakes and that its shore should be fortified by their govern-

ment, the American negotiators replied that their fleet held

sway over the disputed waters. In answer to the suggestion

that the country between the Ohio and the Great Lakes should

continue indefinitely in possession of the Indians, as wards of

the British government, the Americans reported Harrison's

treaties at Greenville. To the threat of further conquest of

American territory by Wellington's veterans, the Americans re-

turned the opinion of the great duke himself that England had

no just cause to continue the American struggle. The result

of the weeks of harassing negotiations at Ghent was a mere

agreement on the part of both contending parties to cease hos-

tilities, but this temporary peace was followed by negotiations

Vol. XIX. - 30.