Measuring 8 by 10 feet, the battle flag of Commodore Perry made certain
the American fleet in Lake Erie was familiar with Captain Lawrence’s dying words. Photo courtesy New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and
Historic Preservation, nysparks.com.

Among the most memorable lines in American history, “Don’t give up the ship” is remembered because it still strikes a chord in the hearts of Americans. Yet few can recall who said it or why.

Who was Captain James Lawrence, and the why was his fear that his officers would surrender his ship, the USS Chesapeake, to the British. He uttered this phrase shortly after 6 p.m. on June 1, 1813, as he lay dying from his wounds on the floor of his cabin. Meanwhile, above decks, his crew engaged in hand-to-hand fighting with British sailors and marines who had boarded the American vessel.

Soon after, the Americans lost the Chesapeake. As Lawrence had ordered, no officer surrendered the ship. No officers were left standing to do the surrendering. The British simply took down the American flag and ran up their Union Jack. While Lawrence’s words weren’t able to save the Chesapeake, they inspired a remarkable victory. As we show, “Don’t give up the ship” inspired Commodore Oliver Perry during the Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812.

Like Lawrence’s phrase, the War of 1812 might stir only vague memories when recalled today. But in the 1820s, the war was a source of great pride to many Americans, for it proved that their nation was a military match for the great British Empire.

In 1862, the British government was considering using their navy to break the Union blockade around Southern ports. Several Post articles reminded its readers of past British interferences with American naval policy.

Memories of that war were revived during the Civil War when Great Britain threatened to intervene on behalf of the Confederacy and break the naval blockade of the Southern states. In January 1862, the Post printed “British Conduct Previous to the War of 1812” to remind its readers why they should still resent Great Britain 50 years after that war ended.

Back in 1812, when America declared war with Great Britain for the second time, the Royal Navy had already been fighting France for more than 15 years. It was using over 600 ships to blockade against all shipping into, and out of, French ports. To keep its ships fully crewed, the navy had resorted to seizing and ordering citizens to serve on their ships. Then, in 1807, it discovered a new source of able seamen on American merchant vessels. It began blocking our ships and taking away sailors it claimed were British subjects and putting them into service on British vessels.

The War of 1812 was only partly concerned with Britain commandeering U.S. sailors, however. The two countries were also engaged in an economic war, which was complicated by American refusal to honor the British embargo on trade with France. In addition, there were long-standing disputes between American settlers and British-supported Native Americans over land in the upper Midwest. And behind these issues was the Americans’ unstated desire to prove by arms that they deserved a place among the leading nations.

They got their proof in New Orleans when General Andrew Jackson defeated a British army. And the American Navy distinguished itself in the Battle of Lake Erie under the command of Perry.

Perry had been a friend of Lawrence. After he learned of the captain’s death, Perry had made a commemorative battle flag for his command ship: a plain cloth on which the words “Dont Give Up the Ship” were attached. (Perry’s flag, as you might notice, has no apostrophe in “don’t.) On September 10, 1813, Perry hoisted this flag above his ship, the USS Lawrence, and sailed with eight other American ships to challenge six British ships for control of Lake Erie.

Perry’s Lawrence, along with the USS Niagara, headed for the two largest British ships, the HMS Detroit and Queen Charlotte. Due to unfavorable winds, the Lawrence was reduced to a slow approach, which enabled the long-range fire from the British to hit Perry’s ship long before he could strike back. By the time the Lawrence had come close enough to strike at the British ships, it had been severely damaged. More than 80 men of its 103-man crew were out of action and its guns could no longer be fired.

Commodore Perry, with his battle flag emblazoned with Lawrence’s words draped over his arm, prepares to shift his command from the Lawrence to the Niagara.

Fortunately, Perry had not been hit. He lowered his battle flag and, holding it tightly, took to the water in a lifeboat. While the British fired down at him with rifle and cannon shots, he and his crew rowed upwind to the USS Niagara, where he raised his flag, effectively moving his command to a new boat. Now, with a fresh crew and intact ship, he returned to the fight.

Soon afterward, the Detroit and Queen Charlotte became entangled while defending themselves from the Niagara’s cannon. They lost any ability to maneuver or effectively return fire. By the time they separated, they had been hit hard by the Niagara and were in no condition to continue the fight. Both captains surrendered to Perry. He promptly wrote to the American commander, “We have met the enemy and they are ours. Two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop.”

Out of this victory, the Americans gained control of Lake Erie, which enabled them to regain Detroit and protect Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York from British invasion.

It is interesting that the expression, “Don’t give up the ship,” remains in Americans’ memories though they may have no idea about its origin. Yet the occasion for the phrase is not as important as the spirit it captures: the instinctive, indomitable spirit, when facing anything from terrorism to tornadoes, never to give in.

200 Years Ago: We Didn’t Give Up the Ship The Saturday Evening Post

Halt of Wilcox’s troops in Caroline Street, Fredericksburg, previous to going into battle. Photo courtesy The Saturday Evening Post (January 17, 1863).

No country can win a war if its military strength isn’t matched by the determination of its people. If a war lasts too long, the public’s resolve runs out before the ammunition does. Case in point: it would have been extremely difficult if not impossible for the administration to maintain public support for the Vietnam War for its entire 14 years. More recently, our country’s determination has been challenged by 11 years in Afghanistan that have produced no decisive victories.

It was no easier 150 years ago, when the Union Army was still recovering from its December 1862 defeat at Fredericksburg. A growing number of Americans were demanding that President Lincoln negotiate with the Confederate government.

In this winter of discontent, the Post responded to the “gloom and dissatisfaction which secessionists are striving to spread over the land” by comparing the achievements of the Northern and Southern armies. In “What We Have Done and What the Rebels Have Done” (February 14, 1863), the editors credited the Union with 33 victories and the Confederacy with just 17.

This ratio of battlefield successes—nearly two-to-one—gives the impression the Union Army was outfighting its Confederate counterpart. But, if truth be told, Post editors were fiddling with the numbers for reasons that were hardly journalistic. The publication had an agenda to stir up waning enthusiasm for Lincoln’s war efforts.

There had been plenty of support for the war when it began in March 1861. Young men throughout the North rushed to enlist, their only worry being the war would be over before they had a chance to prove themselves. After all, they presumed, this would be a short, decisive war.

Then the long list of Union defeats began. In July 1861, the Confederates defeated General McDowell at Bull Run. In March 1862, they defeated General McClellan on the Virginia Peninsula. In August, they defeated General Pope, again at Bull Run. In December, they threw back General Burnsides at the battle of Fredericksburg.

The only place where the Union seemed to advance was in the western states, where Ulysses Grant was making a name for himself with a string of river victories. But Kentucky and Tennessee were a long way from Richmond, Virginia, the seeming invulnerable Confederate capital.

So Post editors rewrote the war to put the Union Army and Navy in a more positive light, using standards that consistently favored the North. For example:

• Three of the Union “victories” were not achieved by combat but reflected territories fell into Federal hands after the Confederates abandoned them.
• The “Evacuation of Manassas” was, in fact, a retreat.
• Two of the Confederates’ major wins at Bull Run were listed as just one victory.
• The editors counted five Union victories in the Peninsula Campaign, but gave the Confederates just one for winning the entire campaign. Moreover, everything the Union gained at Yorktown, Williamsburg, Hanover Courthouse, Fair Oaks, and Malvern Hill, they lost when driven from these battlefields as they retreated down the peninsula.
• Overall, the editors also didn’t weigh the Union and Rebel successes on the same scale: the South’s victories at Bull Run, the Virginia Peninsula, and Fredericksburg were a greater feat of arms than the minor battle of Drainesville or Mill Spring, but reading the Post article, you’d never know that.

Southerners would have recognized the true disparity in the two armies’ successes. They knew that, for all the North’s small victories, the South had kept them from advancing into Virginia for two years. What they couldn’t see in 1863 was how these little victories were quietly adding up and reducing their ability to wage war. The Confederacy still put its faith in winning with a decisive victory in one, big battle. It had been true in Napoleon’s day, but was no longer. Modern wars, waged across the breadth of a nation, were won by countless small wins with little glory and savage fighting.

But a campaign that relies on countless small wins, as we’ve seen in our current fighting in the Middle East, doesn’t look like progress.

The Post’s Civil War Half-Time Report The Saturday Evening Post

This August marks the 70th anniversary of the assault on Guadalcanal.

But in early August, the U.S. began its offensive in the Solomon Islands, northeast of Australia. On the morning of August 7, 1942, the U.S. Marines made their first amphibious landing in 44 years at Guadalcanal.

The Japanese had landed on the island in June and started building an airfield.

Before the Japanese were finally forced to evacuate the island in early 1943, a total of 48 warships had been sunk. Ashore the Japanese lost 24,000 men; the U.S., 1,752.

When completed, it would enable their bombers to push the U.S. and Australia out of the Solomons and even strike the Australian mainland.

Samuel Eliot Morison was the official naval historian at the time, and had already begun writing the complete naval history of World War II. By the time he finished his 15-volume account, he had studied every naval engagement of the war. This is what he said about Guadalcanal in an article written on July 28, 1962, in the Post:

“You may search the seven seas in vain for an ocean graveyard with the wrecks of so many ships and the bones of so many sailors as that body of water between Guadalcanal, Savo and Florida islands which our bluejackets called Ironbottom Sound.

“There is something sinister and depressing about that Sound. [The marines] who rounded Cape Esperance in the darkness before dawn on 7 August remembered, ‘it gave you the creeps.’ Even the land smell failed to cheer sailors who had been long at sea; Guadalcanal gave out a rank, heavy stench of mud, slime, and jungle. And the serrated cone of Savo Island looked as sinister as the crest of a giant dinosaur emerging from the ocean depths.”

Marine LTVs approached neighboring island Tulagi.

The U.S. forces were understandably intimidated.  “The Japanese army in Malaya, the Philippines, and Java had acquired a reputation of invincibility, especially in jungle fighting, and its losses so far were minute. Their navy, despite its defeat at Midway, still had plenty of ships and planes to throw into the Solomons.” Fortunately, the Marine landing at Guadalcanal and neighboring Tulagi went well. By 4:00 PM, they had seized the unfinished airfield.

“Things looked very bright for the Expeditionary Force. Then, shortly after midnight, [began] the worst defeat in a fair fight ever inflicted on the United States Navy.” A Japanese task force of seven cruisers and one destroyer descended upon the Expeditionary Force, shot up the landing craft, and left the Marines without their naval supply line. Proceeding on to Savo island, they attacked first the Australian, then the American ships. Miscommunication, bad luck, poor judgment, and the element of surprise combined to give the Japanese a sizeable victory.

Japanese bombers attacked the American squadron off Guadalcanal.

“It was not a decisive battle and not an unprofitable defeat,” wrote Morison, “although the cost was heavy—four heavy cruisers and one destroyer a total loss; 1270 officers and men killed and 709 wounded. … The Navy held an investigation, which found the blame so evenly distributed that nobody was punished.  And it is well that Admiral Turner, primarily to blame, was not put ‘on the beach,’ because he became the leading practitioner of amphibious warfare in the Pacific. Many lessons were learned from this disastrous battle.”

As so often before, America’s entry into the war was marked by costly mistakes. Not being a warrior nation, we start each conflict with a civilian attitude and a reliance on what worked in the last war, and we are handed defeats. Fortunately, the American military always learns from these mistakes.

Smoke rose from a burning American ship in Savo Bay.

At night, the Marines threw back repeated suicide attacks by the Japanese garrison. In the morning, Army engineers began to repair the bombing damage to Henderson airfield so vital supplies could be flown in.

Marines operated a howitzer near Mount Austen on Guadalcanal, sketched by Sgt. Howard Brodie.

“Ship losses were fairly balanced; two American light cruisers and four destroyers against two Japanese destroyers and a battleship. … But the enemy bombardment mission was completely frustrated.”

The Grumman F4 at Henderson Field.

America didn’t know it was a turning point in the war. Military planners worried that every island battle across the Pacific would be just as long and bloody. But in 1962, Morison could point to Guadalcanal as “a definite shift of America from defensive to offensive, and of Japan in the opposite direction. Fortune now, for the first time, smiled on the Allies everywhere: not only here but in North Africa, at Stalingrad, and in Papua.”

Marines at rest in a Guadalcanal field, November 1942.

Credit for victory in the Solomons should be given to over 80,000 Allied soldiers who fought there, and especially the 10,000 who died. But just as valuable as their fierce devotion and sacrifice was America’s readiness to learn from mistakes, to bring in better commanders, and to continue fighting when the grim price seemed too high. It was this spirit that prompted Winston Churchill to say, in 1942, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

A Turning Point in the Solomons The Saturday Evening Post