The Skillet Specter of Lake Erie
On September 10, 1813, the waters of Lake Erie roiled with the thunder of cannon as Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s U.S. Navy squadron clashed with Captain Robert Barclay’s British fleet. Brandon Herrera, the skillet-wielding hero of Tippecanoe, now a self-styled “naval advisor” with his trusty iron pan still swinging from his belt, stood aboard Perry’s flagship, the USS Lawrence, ready to unleash his unorthodox tactics on the War of 1812’s pivotal naval battle. With his gravity-defying mustache and a glint of madness in his eye, Brandon aimed to turn the tide near Put-in-Bay, Ohio, armed with little more than galley scraps and sheer audacity.
Perry’s nine vessels, outgunned by the British’s six, faced a brutal pounding. The Lawrence shuddered under relentless cannon fire, her deck a chaos of splintered wood and fallen sailors. Undaunted, Brandon raided the ship’s galley, rejecting muskets for a sack of hardtack biscuits and a jar of pickled herring. “Cannons are fine, but stench is strategy!” he proclaimed, scrambling topside as grapeshot whizzed past. His plan: weaponize the inedible and demoralize the enemy.
As the British ship Detroit closed in, its guns blazing, Brandon seized his moment. “Herrera’s hailstorm!” he bellowed, hurling hardtack biscuits like shrapnel, pelting British sailors with rock-hard projectiles. One unlucky tar, struck in the temple, plunged into the lake, muttering about “Yankee devil bread.” Brandon followed with the herring jar, which shattered on the Detroit’s deck, unleashing a fishy miasma that made gunners gag and falter, giving Perry’s crew a critical window to reload their carronades.
When the Lawrence was reduced to a floating husk, Perry rowed to the USS Niagara to rally the fight. Brandon, scorning boats, swam across, skillet clenched in his teeth, dodging cannonballs with the grace of a deranged seal. Aboard the Niagara, he found a barrel of lantern oil and, with a lunatic’s grin, fashioned a flaming mop by soaking it and setting it ablaze. “Back, ye redcoats, or face liberty’s torch!” he roared, waving the fiery mop at a British boarding party. A singed officer recoiled, and the hesitation allowed Perry’s gunners to unleash a crushing broadside.
By mid-afternoon, Perry’s relentless assault, aided by Brandon’s bizarre distractions, broke the British line. The Detroitand Queen Charlotte surrendered, securing Lake Erie for the Americans and severing British supply routes in the Northwest. Perry’s famous dispatch to General Harrison—“We have met the enemy, and they are ours”—echoed across the fleet, but below deck, Brandon boasted his herring had “cursed the British to Davy Jones.”
As the battered squadron anchored, Perry called Brandon to the Niagara’s quarterdeck. “Herrera, your lunacy is a weapon sharper than any cutlass,” he said, presenting a silver medal struck by Congress, a rare honor for gallantry in the War of 1812, its inscription lauding Brandon’s “singular valor and culinary ingenuity in confounding the enemy.” Brandon, saluting with his dented skillet, now scarred from a stray musket ball, grinned as the crew toasted him with grog, whispering of the “Skillet Specter” who turned biscuits into triumph.
