Oliver Perry and Lake Erie: The Rest of the Story

This entry is a follow-up to one I posted on November 5, 2008. Back on Election Day eve while participating in Moxie's live-blog, I offered some encouragement to her as the election returns started to turn decisively against John McCain. I mentioned Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, who at the Battle of Lake Erie on September 10, 1813 inspired his men to fight the British (and ultimately defeat them) by flying the above-pictured naval standard from his flagship, the USS Lawrence. During the course of the battle, the Lawrence suffered severe damage and Perry was forced to transfer his command to the USS Niagara - carrying his naval standard with him. The American victory at Lake Erie prevented a planned British invasion of the Ohio River Valley.

Perry enjoyed the fame that came his way following the victory for only six years. In 1819, on an expedition up the Orinoco River in Venezuela, he contracted yellow fever and passed away. He was survived by his younger brother, Matthew Calbraith Perry, who in 1853-54 led a diplomatic naval expedition to Japan, successfully convincing that country's government to to begin engaging in open trade with the United States (and subsequently, the rest of the Western world). Since the early 1600s, Japan had maintained a policy of strict political and economic isolation - its only contact with the Western world being with a handful of Dutch traders allowed to visit Nagasaki (and re-supply a handful of Dutch merchants living at the nearby island of Deshima) once a year.

Getting back to Oliver Perry's naval standard, the phrase "Don't give up the ship!" had been coined just three months earlier by Perry's friend, Captain James Lawrence of the USS Chesapeake. On June 4, 1813, the Chesapeake fought the British frigate HMS Shannon, and during the fight Captain Lawrence was mortally wounded. As he lay dying, Lawrence said "Don't give up the ship! Fight her till she sinks." Nonetheless, shortly thereafter the Chesapeake was stormed by a British boarding party and the vessel hauled off to Halifax, Nova Scotia. But Lawrence's brave words lived on, inspiring Perry to achieve the victory that had been denied to his friend.

Such are the men who sacrificed all to build our great nation.