Perry is remembered as the Hero of Lake Erie for defeating the British navy in
the War of 1812. He was famous for reporting simply “we have met the
enemy and they are ours” after the decisive Battle of Lake Erie in 1813.
Two years earlier, the Revenge and its 25-year-old commander were en route
from Rhode Island to Connecticut when the ship hit a reef in heavy fog. The
area is infamous for its rocky, tide-swept reefs that lurk just beneath
shallow waters.
When the Revenge struck the reef, Perry ordered the crew to dump some of the
ship’s canons to lighten the load. The mast was cut. But it wasn’t enough to
free the ship.
The crew abandoned the Revenge, and not a single man died.
Harger and Buffum found the shipwreck six years ago after finding a cannon on
the sea bed.
They kept their find a secret for five years as they searched the site for
more artifacts.
They remain convinced they found the Revenge. After all, they said, no other
ship carrying canons from that period is known to have sunk in the area.
The Navy won’t accept their theory until they have evidence that the remains
laying up to 15 feet underwater are indeed the Revenge.
“We were of course interested immediately when we heard,” said
George Schwarz, an underwater archaeologist with the U.S. Navy’s History and
Heritage Command, which oversees the identification and management of sunken
naval vessels. “If it is the USS Revenge, then it’s 200 years old and
it’s an incredibly important part of American history.”
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