The large navy blue banner was emblazoned with the crudely inscribed words, "DONT GIVE UP THE SHIP". Just before the engagement opened Perry hoisted his battle flag to the flagship's main truck. Lastly came the smaller schooners and sloop these would engage the smaller British vessels. The Niagara, captained by Master Commandant Jesse Elliott, would engage the 17-gun Queen Charlotte, the second largest British ship. Fifth in the American line of battle was the Niagara, Perry's other 20-gun brig and the Lawrence's sistership. Next in line floated the Caledonia, a small brig with only three guns. The Lawrence, a 20-gun brig serving as Perry's flagship, was third in line and would engage the Detroit, Barclay's 19-gun flagship. The Schooners Ariel and Scorpion were placed off the flagship's weather bow to engage the first British vessel and to prevent the enemy from raking his fleet. With the wind at his back and the British battle line finally revealed, Perry made his own tactical adjustments. Barclay's options did not alter when the wind shifted, so the Scotsman pointed his bow sprits to the westward, and hove to in line of battle. Perry's opponent, Commander Robert Heriot Barclay, was an experienced Royal Navy officer who had fought with Lord Nelson at Trafalgar in 1805, and two years later he lost an arm fighting the French.
But before the order could be executed the wind suddenly shifted and blew from the southeast, placing the wind directly behind the Americans. The frustrated Perry, conceded to mother nature at 10 a.m., issuing orders to turn his fleet in the opposite direction. For more than two hours Perry repeatedly tacks his ships in an effort to put the wind to his back, but with no success. the American vessels were steering west-northwest the wind was blowing from the west-southwest. When the squadron sailed from Put-in-Bay harbor at 7 a.m. Perry needed the wind to his back to close within carronade range. The carronades could inflict much more damage at close range. The American ships primarily armed with carronades had less than half the range of a long gun. The British were armed with long guns that could throw a cannonball approximately one mile, accurately to about one-half mile. The British squadron consisted of six ships with sixty-three cannons, while the American flotilla comprised nine vessels and fifty-four guns. The British had to either fight, or abandon Fort Malden. With Perry's fleet on Lake Erie the British supply route from Fort Malden to Port Dover had been severed. Immediately Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry issued a flurry of orders and made preparations to sail forth to engage the British.
At dawn on the morning of September 10, 1813, a lookout spotted six British vessels to the northwest of Put-in-Bay beyond Rattlesnake Island.
0 kommentar(er)
