For a while, Trippe and her sister ships, fitted out on the Niagara River, were bottled up by British shore batteries at Fort George.

However, Commodore Isaac Chauncey's squadron joined the troops under Colonel Winfield Scott in a combined attack upon the fort, and it fell on 27 May 1813.

With the river open, Chauncey's ships began passage of the Niagara rapids on 6 June 1813 and, on the 19th joined Oliver Hazard Perry's fleet at Erie, Pennsylvania.

That location afforded him excellent lines of communications with American forces to the south and put him within easy striking distance of Commodore Robert Barclay's British fleet, based just inside the mouth of the Detroit River at Amherstburg.

Perry's ships, including Trippe, cleared for action and headed out in the line of battle with flagship Lawrence in the lead.

Perry's flagship suffered similar damage, but he moved his flag to Niagara and ordered his ships forward, through the enemy line.