WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY. OLIVER HAZARD PERRY: WILDERNESS COMMODORE.

New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978. 231 pp, large 8vo (9 1/4" H). Map. "Perry fought perhaps the most perfect single battle in American naval history. More - he insured the success of William Henry Harrison's Northwest Territory campaign, in which he soldiered as a volunteer aide to General Harrison. He ended Tecumseh's plans for an Indian Confederation. He dashed forever Britain's dream of blocking the United States in its westward march. In 1811 Perry was named to create a fleet on Lake Erie. He chose Presque Ile Bay as the one harbor safe from the existing British lake fleet. Perry spent the spring and summer of 1813 doing the impossible - building first a shipyard, then a fleet of ten vessels in the frontier outpost of Erie, Pennsylvania. The bar at Erie was not deep enough to pass Perry's ships out into the lake. (But neither could the British enter the bay over the shallows; hence his choice of harbor.) He bided his time till his opponent Captain Robert Barclay sailed away for a brief respite. Then his men, in a fenzy of activity, emptied their ships of all guns and heavy gear and buoyed them with pontoons until they could be boosted across the sandbar. Perry got them safely into deep water in the nick of time. And when Barclay's fleet came up to resume the blockade of Erie, Perry bluffed them away with his still undermanned and almost unarmed flotilla. Once reinforced by a unit under the command of Jesse D. Elliott, Perry attacked the British fleet in his flagship 'Lawrence'; Elliott was to bring the 'Niagara' into action beside him. Elliott, unaccountably, hung back, and the 'Lawrence' was shot to pieces by the three strongest Britishers. How Perry turned certain defeat into a monumental victory is one of the greatest naval achievements of all time." Previous owner's name in ink on front free endpaper, minor soiling on boards, light edgewear, minor wrinkling at top/bottom of spine, tiny speck on fore-edge of text block. Dust jacket is price-clipped with very light wear/wrinkling at top/bottom of spine and flap-folds, a few tiny tears at top/bottom of spine - taped at top inside, light edge browning, light fading and tiny scuff on spine, small ghost sticker mark/residue on front panel.. Hard Cover. Very Good-/Very Good-.