"DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP,"

"DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP," the words spoken by James Lawrence, commander of the American frigate Chesapeake, after he fell fatally wounded in the engagement with the British frigate Shannon, thirty miles off of Boston harbor, on 1 June 1813. Despite Lawrence's brave words, the British captured the Chesapeake, and Lawrence died four days later. When Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry won his famous victory over the British on Lake Erie on 10 September 1813, he flew at the mainmast of his flagship a blue battleflag inscribed with Capt. Lawrence's dying words.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Peabody Museum of Salem. "Don't Give Up the Ship." Salem: Peabody Museum, 1942.

Roosevelt, Theodore. Naval War of 1812. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1902

Louis H. Bolander/C. W.

See also Great Lakes Naval Campaigns of 1812; Navy, United States; War of 1812.