On This Day 10 September

[Coog]

The Battle of Lake Erie, sometimes called the Battle of Put-in-Bay, was fought on 10 September 1813, in Lake Erie off the coast of Ohio during the War of 1812. Nine vessels of the United States Navy defeated and captured six vessels of Great Britain's Royal Navy. This ensured American control of the lake for the rest of the war, which in turn allowed the Americans to recover Detroit and win the Battle of the Thames to break the Indian confederation of Tecumseh. It was one of the biggest naval battles of the War of 1812.

[Coog]

The Battle of Lake Pontchartrain was a single-ship action on September 10, 1779, part of the American Revolutionary War. It was fought between the British sloop-of-war HMS West Florida and the Continental Navy schooner USS Morris in the waters of Lake Pontchartrain, then in the British province of West Florida.

The West Florida was patrolling on Lake Pontchartrain when it encountered the Morris, which had set out from New Orleans with a Spanish and American crew headed by Continental Navy Captain William Pickles. The larger crew of the Morris successfully boarded the West Florida, inflicting a mortal wound on its captain, Lieutenant John Payne. The capture of the West Florida eliminated the major British naval presence on the lake, weakening already tenuous British control over the western reaches of West Florida.

[David Manley]

Best bit of the lake for me is the causeway. One of the most surreal driving experiences in the world :)

[csadn]

The Battle of Lake Erie, sometimes called the Battle of Put-in-Bay, was fought on 10 September 1813, in Lake Erie off the coast of Ohio during the War of 1812. Nine vessels of the United States Navy defeated and captured six vessels of Great Britain's Royal Navy. This ensured American control of the lake for the rest of the war, which in turn allowed the Americans to recover Detroit and win the Battle of the Thames to break the Indian confederation of Tecumseh. It was one of the biggest naval battles of the War of 1812.

A shining example of "perfection is the enemy of good enough" (the British built one high-quality ship, _Detroit_, while the US built *six* mid-quality ships; granted, there is argument over whether the British could have crewed any more ships than they had) and the importance of "opportunistically acquired" stores (the 24-lb. carronades used by the US had been taken from the British at the Battle of York some months before).