Unfortunately Ships of Oak, Guns of Iron is filled with errors of fact that cause those familiar with the conflict to cringe. The intrepid captain of the sloop-of-war Wasp, Johnston Blakeley, has his last name consistently misspelled. Several times the ranks of British and American officers are incorrectly noted. Anyone who describes Put-in-Bay, Ohio, as “off the eastern shore of the Bass Islands” in Lake Erie has not looked at a map. Most grievous is the suggestion that Commodore Isaac Chauncey on Lake Ontario was “a good strategist and an excellent judge of character in the subordinates he selected and to whom he gave great responsibility: Oliver Hazard Perry, Winfield Scott, Thomas Macdonough, and Zebulon Pike.”

Does Utt not understand that Generals Scott and Pike were not selected by Chauncey nor were they under his command, that on Lake Champlain Macdonough had an independent command, and that although Perry was selected by him and was his subordinate, the eventual victor on Lake Erie was so exasperated with his superior that he offered his resignation in frustration over what he considered was a lack of support?