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{ 19 } ​“We Have Met the Enemy and They Are Ours” The US Navy Brig Niagara Walter Rybka The Lake Erie Campaign of 1813 The surrender of Fort Mackinac, the capitulation of Detroit, and other defeats suffered by the US Army on the northwestern frontier in 1812 drove home the lesson that military success in this region depended upon naval control of Lakes Erie and Huron. Belatedly , the US Navy began building a squadron of warships at Erie, Pennsylvania. Four small gunboats were begun in November under the direction of a local shipmaster , Daniel Dobbins. On the last day of 1812, the commander of all US naval forces on the Great Lakes, Comm. Isaac Chauncey, inspected Dobbins’ work and notified the Navy Department of his intent to augment the gunboats with a brig of “about 300 tons.” Secretary of the Navy William Jones approved this vessel, and to assure ascendancy on the Upper Lakes, he also authorized the building of a second brig of the same size. The work did not begin until early March, when Noah Brown, an experienced New York shipbuilder, arrived at Erie to take charge of the building. He was accompanied by a handful of experienced carpenters from New York.1 Records of the time are typically vague about the navy’s two brigs, and plans for them have never been found. Chauncey’s orders to Brown stipulated that the brigs were to have a burthen of 360 tons, were to mount twenty guns (eighteen 32-­ pounder carronades and two long 12 pounders), and were to draw no more than 61/2 to 7 feet (1.93 to 2.13 m) of water to allow them to pass over the sand bar at the entrance to the bay at Erie. Chauncey also requested that they be fast-­ sailing vessels, which, in combination with their shallow draft, was entirely at odds with his desire that the brigs “bear their guns with ease.” The commodore instructed Noah Brown, “their frame &c. will be left to yourself,” indicating that Brown was given a good deal of latitude in the design, materials, and assembly of 1 { 20 } Rybka the brigs. The overriding stipulation was that the new vessels were to be built in the shortest possible time.2 Late March saw the arrival of Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry, sent by Chauncey to command the squadron. Dobbins, Brown, and Perry made an effective team to deal with the daunting task of creating a naval force in a remote wilderness. The need for speed was uppermost in everyone’s mind. Although unlimited quantities of timber were at hand, nothing else was readily available. Iron for fastenings, rope, sailcloth, anchors, ordnance, and ammunition all had to be freighted at great cost from Pittsburgh, Philadelphia , or other distant cities. The greatest shortage was labor, but as spring came more men arrived and Brown’s shipyard eventually employed over two hundred craftsmen. The brigs, named Lawrence and Niagara , were finished and launched by early June, but the delays in the delivery of equipment dragged out the outfitting for two more months.3 In June the US Army’s advance on the Niagara peninsula at Lake Erie’s outlet allowed Perry to sail five armed merchant vessels from Buffalo to Erie to augment his squadron, bringing the total up to eleven ships. Nine of the eleven were quite small, mounting between one and four guns each. While Perry’s force was small and his situation difficult, his foe’s position on the lake was nearly impossible. Royal Navy Cmdr. Robert H. Barclay had the advantages of a base at Fort Malden on the Detroit River and his existing squadron of eight ships, but construction, supply, and manning proved even more difficult for the British. Despite Perry’s fears, Barclay could neither attack Erie nor maintain an effective blockade in the spring and summer of 1813. When the British squadron left Erie uncovered for a few days at the end of July, Perry seized the opportunity to enter the lake. Presque Isle peninsula encloses Erie harbor and guarded the entrance with a bar that had, at most, 6 feet (1.83 m) of water over it. Lawrence and Niagara reportedly drew 9 feet (2.74 m) and thus needed to be lifted over the bar with the aid of camels (barges that could be partially flooded, secured to the ship, and then pumped out to provide lift). It was a perilous undertaking: to reduce weight, all guns had...

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