📅 On This Day in Military History
1 event across history
Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry met the British squadron near Put-in-Bay, Ohio, in a brutal fight for control of Lake Erie. Perry's flagship USS Lawrence was shot to pieces and he famously transferred his flag to USS Niagara under heavy fire, rowing through a hail of shot in an open boat. From Niagara he broke through the British line and forced the entire British squadron to surrender — the first time in Royal Navy history that an entire squadron had been captured. Perry's dispatch to General Harrison became immortal: 'We have met the enemy and they are ours.'
Control of Lake Erie severed the British supply line to Detroit and the western theater, making General Harrison's offensive into Upper Canada possible. The victory enabled the subsequent Battle of the Thames and the death of Tecumseh, effectively ending organized Native American resistance in the Northwest.
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