Perry Luck

The British pulled away from Erie in Early August, which gave him the time to get ships over the sand bar.

He escaped the two hours' destruction aboard the Lawrence unscathed.

At one point he was talking to the Lieutenant in charge of the Marines, John Brooks, when a canon ball struck Brooks in the hip, sending him in agony to die below deck. He pleaded with shipmates to shoot him; none could do it. He lasted for 2 hours.

Perry stopped to aid one of his gun captains, who was suddenly torn in tow by a 24-pound cannonball. Perry was untouched.

One of Lawrence's boats was still afloat, being towed astern. It had a hole shot through it, but the hole was above the water line. (Speculation that the romantic image of Perry standing in the boat may in fact be accurate: he may have stood, leaning to the one side to keep the hole out of the water). He takes four of his best surviving men as a boat crew, hauls down his battle flag ("Don't Give Up the Ship" -- dying words of Captain James Lawrence, killed in battle earlier that year) and row, incredibly without being killed, toward Niagara.

Once he rowed back 1/2 mile or so to Niagara, met with Captain Elliot (who had inexplicably stayed out of battle range as Lawrence got shot pieces), the breeze "freshened" and Perry was able to sail his new flagship, battle flag newly raised, right into the line of battle. In less than 15 minutes, Perry achieved the ultimate goal in any naval battle -- to "cross the T"-- to pass the broadsides of your ship between two facing enemy ships' sterns or bows, so as to minimize their ability to fire at you while you rake broadsides at two ships from either side of your own.