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• Born: 23 August 1785
• Birthplace: South Kingstown, Rhode Island
• Died: 23 August 1819 (Malaria)
• Best Known As: The hero of the Battle of Lake Erie (1813)

Oliver Hazard Perry joined the navy in his early teens, and by his early twenties he had been promoted to lieutenant. After he served in the Tripolitan War in the Mediterranean (1802-03) he returned to the U.S. to build and command gunboats at the behest of President Thomas Jefferson. His great fame came from the Battle at Lake Erie (1813), where U.S. ships under Perry's command defeated British forces, a turning point in the War of 1812. Perry's flagship Lawrence was incapacitated, but he went back and got the smaller Niagara, transferred the flag that read "Don't Give Up The Ship," (honoring the last words of Capt. James Lawrence of the U.S.S. Chesapeake) then went back and beat the British ships under the command of Captain Robert Heriot Barclay. After the battle his message to William Henry Harrison, waiting to advance into Canada, became famous: "We have met the enemy and they are ours. Two ships, two brigs, one schooner, one sloop." After the war he was promoted to captain and fought again in the Mediterranean (1816-17), then was sent in 1819 on a diplomatic mission to Venezuela, where he contracted a fatal case of malaria.

Oliver Hazard Perry was the older brother of that other famous naval guy, Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry.

(1785–1819), U.S. naval officer

Born of a naval family, Perry served as a midshipman toward the end of undeclared naval war with France (1789–1800) and as a midshipman and acting lieutenant during the Tripolitan War (1801–05). After being promoted to lieutenant, he helped enforce the embargo, which prohibited American ships and goods from leaving port, and protected the American coast from privateering. During the War of 1812, he directed construction of a small fleet on Lake Erie, and on 10 September 1813, used it decisively to defeat a British squadron at Put‐in‐Bay. The Battle of Lake Erie secured for the United States control over the lake and changed the balance of power in the western theater of operations, but now is best remembered as the occasion of Perry's report to Gen. William Henry Harrison: “We have met the enemy and they are ours.” That same year Perry provided naval support for Winfield Scott's capture of Fort George, and aided Harrison in the reoccupation of Detroit, as well as at the Battle of the Thames. In 1814, he played a minor role in the defense of the Chesapeake Bay area when the British invaded the region. He died of yellow fever in 1819 while on a naval and diplomatic mission in South America. A younger brother, Matthew C. Perry, led the naval expedition that opened Japan in 1853.

[See also Navy, U.S.: 1783–1865.]

Bibliography

• Alexander S. Mackenzie, The Life of Commodore Oliver H. Perry, 2 vols., 1840.
• Charles J. Dutton, Oliver Hazard Perry, 1935.
• David Curtis Skaggs and Gerard T. Altoff, A Signal Victory: The Lake Erie Campaign, 1812–1813, 1997

Perry, Oliver Hazard (1785-1819) naval officer. Born into a naval family in Rhode Island, Perry first served on his father's frigate. He served ably in the Barbary Wars (1801-05) and in protecting U.S. shipping interests from privateers; in 1813 he assumed command of a naval force on Lake Erie. His defeat of a British squadron under Gen. Robert H. Barclay, despite personal illness, was a major victory, considered by some the most important engagement of the War of 1812; it also helped Gen. William H. Harrison's troops to defeat British troops in the area. For years after, however, controversy raged about the failure of one of Perry's officers to engage the enemy during the battle.

Having defeated the British fleet in Lake Erie on September 10, 1813, Perry famously cabled his superior, “We have met the enemy and they are ours.”

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Oliver Hazard Perry (1785-1819) was the American naval officer in command during the Sept. 10, 1813, victory on Lake Erie, one of the great American naval triumphs of the War of 1812.

Oliver Hazard Perry was born in South Kingston, R.I., on Aug. 20, 1785. He received his elementary education there. In 1799 he served as midshipman with his father, Capt. Christopher Raymond Perry, in the West Indies during the quasi-war with France. He also served in the Mediterranean during the Tripolitan War, performing creditably.

Perry was in command of a flotilla at Newport, Va., when war broke out in 1812, but he was given command of American naval forces on Lake Erie in March 1813. Perry built a small fleet under conditions of extreme difficulty. By August he had 10 ships, the brigs Lawrence and Niagara being the largest. Perry could not get his largest ships across the Erie bar in the presence of the enemy fleet led by Comm. Robert H. Barclay until the latter relaxed his blockade for unknown reasons.

Barclay finished a large new ship, the Detroit. Desperately short of supplies, he challenged the Americans. The fleets met on Sept. 10, 1813. The Americans had superior firepower, but there was little difference in manpower. At 10 A.M. the Lawrence was cleared for action and hoisted its battleflag, "Don't give up the ship." Action lasted from 11:45 A.M. until 3:00 P.M. After all the Lawrence 's guns were disabled, Perry rowed to the Niagara. Fifteen minutes after the Niagara moved into the heavy action, the British fleet surrendered. American casualties numbered 27 killed and 96 wounded, and British losses were 41 killed, 94 wounded. Perry dashed off his famous dispatch following the victory, "We have met the enemy and they are ours."

The victory was of major significance, for America now controlled Lake Erie until the war ended. Also, Gen. William Henry Harrison was enabled to capture much of Upper Canada, and the American peace negotiators were able to assert American claims to the Northwest.

Perry was promoted to captain in September 1813 and shortly thereafter received the thanks of Congress. Following the war he served in the Mediterranean. He died of yellow fever on Aug. 23, 1819, after completing a diplomatic mission to Venezuela and Buenos Aires. His body was interred at Port of Spain, Trinidad.

Further Reading

Charles J. Dutton, Oliver Hazard Perry (1935), is an adequate biography, but minor factual errors abound. The best discussions of the Battle of Lake Erie in terms of strategy and significance can be found in Alfred Thayer Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relation to the War of 1812 (2 vols., 1905). Also useful is Olin H. Lyman, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and the War on the Lakes (1905), and Harry L. Coles, The War of 1812 (1965).

Additional Sources

Dillon, Richard, We have met the enemy: Oliver Hazard Perry, wilderness commodore, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978.

For more information on Oliver Hazard Perry, visit Britannica.com.

1785–1819, American naval officer, b. South Kingstown, R.I.; brother of Matthew Calbraith Perry. Appointed a midshipman in 1799, he served in the Tripolitan War, was promoted to lieutenant (1807), and from 1807 to 1809 was engaged in building gunboats. In the War of 1812 he was commissioned to build, equip, and man a fleet at Erie, Pa. On Sept. 10, 1813, Perry's fleet left Put-in-Bay, Ohio, and met a slightly inferior British force. In the subsequent battle, the battle of Lake Erie, Perry's flagship, the Lawrence, was reduced to ruins, but he transferred his flag to the Niagara and shortly forced the British to surrender. His report of the battle sent to Gen. William H. Harrison—“We have met the enemy and they are ours”—has become famous. The victory, which made Perry a national hero, gave the United States control of Lake Erie and helped pave the way for Harrison's victory in the battle of the Thames River, in which Perry participated. After the war he served as a captain in the Mediterranean. Later, on a mission to Venezuela, he contracted yellow fever, died, and was buried in Trinidad. His body was later brought to Newport, R.I., where a monument was erected to him. A memorial to Perry at Put-in-Bay, built 1912–15, was made a national monument in 1936.

Bibliography

See biography by C. J. Dutton (1935); C. O. Paullin, ed., The Battle of Lake Erie (1918); C. S. Forester, The Age of Fighting Sail (1956).

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