Biography of oliver hazard perry

Later noticing that the American flag was still flying and Perry in the long boat making for the Niagara, the men realized that there would be no surrender from the Americans yet. The British again opened fire upon the Lawrence and this time also upon Perry's long boat. Once the men watching from the battered Lawrence saw that Perry was aboard the Niagara and his pendent flying from the mast, they finally lowered the American Flag.

Taking command of the Niagara Perry engaged a damaged enemy with a very fresh ship, the twin of his flagship, thereby winning the battle. After the battle, on the back of an old letter, Perry wrote to General Harrison these famous words, " We have met the enemy and they are ours: two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop. After the Battle of Lake Erie was over, Perry and his crew received prize money for all the British ships they captured.

Perry was also promoted to permanent captaincy, and Congress awarded him a metal. In , then in command of the ship Java he "dressed down" his captain of the Marines, John Heath, for an indolent response to an order he had given. Captain Heath still smarting from the dressing down requested an interview with Perry. During the interview, Heath did not show the correct respect to his commanding officer and in anger, Perry struck him.

Both Perry and Heath were court-martialed, given a slap upon the wrist, and returned to duty. Heath could not let this incident go. He felt that he must reclaim his repute. In those days, a common way was upon the field of honor. After receiving notice of this Perry, realizing the necessity of facing Heath wrote to Commodore Stephen Decatur, asking him to act as his second in a duel with Heath.

A matched pair of Navy pistols was divided between the two men. With the seconds standing vigil they stood back to back, whereupon they commenced walking with measured steps, all the while timed by the words of the seconds. At ten paces they turned and faced each other. Heath fired and missed. Perry did not return the fire but requested Decatur to read a letter that he had earlier written.

In the letter, Perry stated his determination not to return Heath's fire for any reason. Hearing this Captain Heath acquiesced and declared his honor restored. In Perry took command of the John Adams, and was sent to Venezuela. There he contracted yellow fever. Perry died at sea near Trinidad on August 23, where he was buried. He was just 34 years old.

Later in , his remains were moved to his hometown of Newport, RI. The life of Oliver Hazard Perry was very fascinating to this author, not only because of the Battle of Lake Erie, but because of his incredible bravery under fire. What I did not report until now was during the long hours of the Battle of Lake Erie Perry walked the deck while he was under fire at all times.

There are stories that state numerous times he was almost killed by one shot or the other. In fact a number of men, were mowed down by cannon fire in mid conversation with him. There were so many stories of this, that if I were one of his sailors, I would have thought it prudent to not stand anywhere near him. This tremendous bravery was also later shown when he stood and took Heath's shot at him in the field of honor.

In conclusion, Perry's conquest at the Battle of Lake Erie led directly to the fall of the British in the northwestern portion of North America. For after the battle, the Americans had undisputed control of Lake Erie, with the British trapped on the wrong side. Detroit and Michigan territory fell back into American hands. Furthermore, the British allegiance with the American Indian was exterminated, with the death of Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames.

Remarkably, all this was entirely caused by the British defeat at Lake Erie. Skip to Main Content. Website Sign In. References Influence of Sea Power upon History, Volumes one and two, by Captain A. Mahan, D. War of S Forester. Published by Ginn and Company, New York, in Oliver Hazard Perry, by Charles J. Publish by Longmans, Green and Co.

NY NY Arming the Fleet: U. More Information For more information, email Dave Evans. A Biography of Oliver Hazard Perry. Contact Us. He first saw combat off the coast of Haiti during the height of the Haitian Revolution. He subsequently participated in the Quasi War, the Barbary Wars, and the War of , in which he earned renown for his naval victories in the Great Lakes region.

On September 10, , Perry solidified his reputation as a brilliant naval commander and American hero at the Battle of Lake Erie , also known as the Battle of Put-in-Bay. The commodore brazenly ordered his men to set sail and engage the British immediately. Edged on by a favorable wind, Perry, stationed on the flagship Lawrence , attacked the British line head on.

The British ship Detroit crippled the flagship, forcing Perry to transfer his men to the Niagara. The Treaty of Ghent was signed before Java could be put to sea. For Perry, the post-war years were marred by controversies. While moored in Naples, Perry slapped the commander of the ship's Marines, Captain John Heath, whom Perry charged with "disrespectful, insolent, and contemptuous conduct to me his superior officer".

After the crew returned home, Heath challenged Perry to a pistol duel , which was fought on October 19, , on the same field in Weehawken, New Jersey where Aaron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton. Heath fired first and missed. Perry declined to return fire, satisfying the Marine's honor. Perry's return from the Mediterranean also reignited the feud with Elliott.

After an exchange of angry letters, Elliott challenged Perry to a duel, which Perry refused. While it was normally considered cowardly to refuse a duel, Perry's stature as a hero was such that no one doubted his physical courage and few felt that Perry had wrongly offended Elliott's honor. Perry filed a total of six charges and twenty-one specifications including "conduct unbecoming an officer," and failure to "do his utmost to take or destroy the vessel of the enemy which it was his duty to encounter.

Wishing to avoid a scandal between two decorated naval heroes, Secretary of the Navy Smith Thompson and President James Monroe suppressed the matter by offering Perry a diplomatic mission to South America in exchange for dropping his charges. This put an official end to the controversy, though it would continue to be debated for another quarter century.

In Perry purchased a large house on Washington Square in Newport which was built in for merchant Peter Buloid. The house remained in the Perry family until and now serves as an antique bookstore. A favorable treaty was signed on August 11 with Vice-President Francisco Antonio Zea in the absence of Bolivar who was engaged in the liberation of New Granada , but when the schooner started downriver, many of her crew, including Perry, had been stricken with yellow fever.

Despite the crew's efforts to reach Trinidad for medical assistance, the commodore died on board USS Nonsuch on August 23, , his 34th birthday, as the ship entered the Gulf of Paria and was nearing Port of Spain. His remains were later taken back to the United States in and interred in Newport, Rhode Island. Perry Street in Savannah, Georgia , is named in his honor.

Perry married Elizabeth Champlin Mason in They had five children, four of whom lived to maturity. They were:. Perry's son Christopher Grant Champlin Perry was a physician, and served as commander of the Artillery Company of Newport from April until his death in In May he was commissioned as a brigadier general in the Rhode Island Militia and given command of the 1st Brigade encompassing Newport and Bristol Counties.

Perry's son Oliver Hazard Perry Jr. Although he is buried in the same cemetery as his parents, for unknown reasons, he is not buried in the same plot with his parents. He died on active duty as a 1st lieutenant in Although Perry is often referred to as "Commodore Perry," it should be kept in mind that, prior to the American Civil War, commodore was not a rank in the U.

Navy but, rather, the title of an officer in command of a squadron of two or more ships. Perry first held the title of commodore when he took command of the Lake Erie squadron in Its ft m tower, the world's most massive Doric column, was constructed by a multi-state commission between and Perry with words by Henry C. Contents move to sidebar hide.

Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item. United States Navy officer — This article is about the naval officer. For the U. Navy frigate class, see Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate. Commodore Perry is not to be confused with Commodore Barry.

Island Cemetery , Newport, Rhode Island. Christopher Perry father Matthew Calbraith Perry brother. Childhood and early life [ edit ]. Early naval career [ edit ]. War of [ edit ]. Hero of Lake Erie [ edit ]. The Battle Flag [ edit ]. Perry—Elliott controversy [ edit ]. Congressional Gold Medal [ edit ]. Later commands and controversies [ edit ].

Mission to Venezuela and death [ edit ]. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. The British had seized the U. While making off with the Diana , the Revenge was approached by a British warship called the Goree. In a show of boldness that he would exhibit throughout his career, Perry prepared to fight.

The Goree backed off, and Perry won the admiration of those who heard about the encounter. Perry now received orders to return for coastal duties in the north. Assigned to conduct a survey of some Rhode Island harbors, Perry was, on February 2, , cruising in a thick fog when the Revenge ran aground got into water that was too shallow and hit the bottom of the ocean , causing damage to the ship.

The Revenge eventually sank, but Perry managed to save the crew and some of the property aboard the ship. Since a valuable ship had been lost, the Navy investigated the incident, but Perry was found to be blameless and was even praised for his actions. Since he was now without a ship, Perry requested a leave of absence from naval duty.

He took this opportunity to get married, wedding Elizabeth Champlin Mason on May 5, the couple would go on to have a daughter and three sons. Perry's domestic tranquility was soon interrupted, however, by the coming of war between the United States and Great Britain. For several years the United States had tried to avoid war, countering the practices it condemned through economic rather than military means.

But measures like the Embargo Act of , which prevented ships from entering or leaving American ports and thus put an end to shipping, had only hurt the United States more. Americans were especially angry about U. In addition, many U. All of these factors led to the June 18, , declaration of war against Great Britain. Convinced that war would be declared, Perry had requested sea duty in May Instead, he was given command of the same squadron of gunboats whose construction he had previously supervised.

Perry's job was to defend the city of Newport and, despite his disappointment at serving so close to shore, he devoted himself to his task. In August he was promoted to the rank of Master Commandant. Still unwilling to give up his dream of more active service, Perry wrote to Commander Isaac Chauncey , who was in charge of U. These bodies of water held great strategic importance, for whoever controlled the lakes—especially Ontario and Erie—controlled the only efficient supply and transport routes in the northwest.

Chauncey wrote back that he had a special job in mind for Perry, who was soon ordered to report to Chauncey's headquarters at Sacket's Harbor, New York , on Lake Ontario. Perry arrived at Sacket's Harbor on February 17, , and a little less than a month later he left to begin the special job that Chauncey had assigned him. He was to go to the new U.

He also was to lead the United States in taking control of Lake Erie. Chauncey, meanwhile, would concentrate his own efforts on Lake Ontario. Perry tackled the assignment with his usual determination, but he faced many problems, including bitterly cold weather and the difficulty of gathering the wood needed to build ships. Another major obstacle to overcome was the lack of able seamen to serve on the ships.

As the spring and early summer progressed, Perry found that he had only about sailors who were fit for service, since many of the men were suffering from an illness called lake fever. Chauncey had agreed that Perry would need about men to carry out his mission. However, Perry maintained that Chauncey was unwilling to send enough to attain that level and also kept the most experienced and capable soldiers for his own fleet.

The bad feelings between the two men almost resulted in Perry's resignation, but Chauncey and other officers convinced him to stay. Eventually, with the arrival of some volunteers from the Pennsylvania militia small armies made up of troops residing in a particular state and from the army of Major General William Henry Harrison ; see biographical entry , Perry was able to put together an adequate force.

Another big problem still remained though. There was a sand bar at the mouth of the Presque Isle harbor that lay only about seven feet beneath the surface of the water.

Biography of oliver hazard perry

That was too shallow to allow passage of Perry's two largest ships, the Lawrence and the Niagara. Also, Perry needed to move five other ships a distance of eighty miles upstream from the town of Black Rock located down the Niagara River, which connects lakes Ontario and Erie in order to reach Presque Isle. En route the ships would have to pass by British-held Fort Erie.

The British also had a squadron of ships stationed on Fort Erie, under the command of Robert Barclay , a one-armed veteran of Great Britain's war with France. This fleet was waiting outside the Presque Isle harbor to prevent the Perry's ships from entering. The task might have been impossible without the help of what came to be known as "Perry's luck.

Army had made progress against the British along the Niagara River, and the British were forced to evacuate Fort Erie. Thus the ships were able to proceed up towards Presque Isle, and when they reached the harbor, Barclay's fleet was gone. Although it was rumored that Barclay had left to attend a dinner banquet, it is more likely that he had gone for provisions.

In any case, the U. Perry would need more luck to get the Lawrence and Niagara across the sand bar and into the open lake. Their heavy guns were removed, and a device called a camel—large boxes or barges filled with water which were positioned partly under the ship, then emptied to become buoyant—was used to lift the ships enough to allow them to pass over the sand bar.

The Lawrence got clear, but the Niagara became stuck in the sand. Just at this moment, with the Niagara disabled and the Lawrence completely unarmed, Barclay's squadron appeared about a mile offshore. Perry called on his famous luck again and made an incredibly bold move: he sent two of his smaller ships toward the British, firing their guns. Barclay had no idea that the U.

The Americans now had crew on their ships, while the British had only 10 per British ship were trained seamen; all in all the U. Perry's flagship the ship that carries the battle's top commander would be the Lawrence , and Elliott would command the Niagara. Each of these ships was equipped with twenty guns. Also participating in the battle were the Caledonia three guns ; the Somers two guns ; the Trippe one gun ; and the gunboats Tigress, Porcupine, Scorpion , and Ariel , each with one to four guns.

His squadron complete—and with the Lawrence flying a blue flag with white lettering that read, "Don't Give Up the Ship," the last words uttered by Captain James Lawrence , who had died in an earlier sea battle—Perry sailed west, ready to disrupt the British supply lines and engage them in battle if possible. The U. Perry ordered that sand be spread on the decks of the ships, so that in the event of a brutal battle the sailors would not slip on the blood that was bound to be spilled.

Meanwhile, Barclay was under pressure to engage the U. His supplies were running dangerously low, his men had not been paid, and he also had to support a huge group of Native American allies, who were camped with their families at Amherstburg. A victory on Lake Erie would secure his supply lines. In addition, Sir George Prevost , the overall commander of the British troops in Canada, was urging Barclay to confront the Americans.

The battle began just before noon. The plan had been for the Lawrence to close in quickly on the British, because it did not have the long-range guns needed to attack from a distance. The Niagara was to follow closely and engage the Queen Charlotte , while the smaller vessels took on the enemy's smaller ships. For reasons unknown, Elliott failed to bring the Niagara close and instead hung back, ignoring signals to proceed.