The Lawrence’s guns had ceased to work, leaving the flagship of the American squadron defenseless. Broadside after broadside had made the air thick with a pungent combination of ash and burning flesh. No amount of sand spread on the decks could soak up the blood that ran freely from the mangled and missing limbs of his men. British cannon balls and grapeshot lobbed across the murky waters of Lake Erie by the HMS Detroit and her sister ships had torn his brig and crew to pieces. (Oct.Just after two o’clock in the afternoon on September 10, 1813, Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry was one of the few men still standing-or even alive-on the USS Lawrence. What kept the peace, Daughan argues provocatively, was America's postwar commitment to "a strong navy, an adequate professional army, and the financial reforms necessary to support them"%E2%80%94in other words, an effective deterrent.
The treaty ending the war provided numerous unresolved grounds for renewed conflict. Finally, the successes of American privateers against British shipping drove costs higher than the business community was willing to accept without protest. Such fights as Constitution versus Guerriere impelled rethinking the subject. Over the previous century, British warships had come to assume superiority in single-ship actions. Second, the performances of individual warships generated increasing British respect, both in the Royal Navy and in the administration, for American abilities at sea. The navy's performance convinced critics that a strong navy was indispensable to its protection and did not threaten the Constitution.
Daughan's achievement is contextualizing the effect of those victories on three levels. Navy proper, because despite some notable ship-to-ship victories, the fleet was so small and so quickly driven from the seas.
There is little new information on the U.S. Daughan follows his award -wining If by Sea, about the American navy in the Revolutionary War, with a solidly researched, well-crafted account of U.S.
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