On 9 September 1813, while "Nancy" was in Lake Huron on a trip to Fort Mackinac (which had been captured by a British force in the first few days of the war), the Americans won the decisive Battle of Lake Erie, capturing all the British armed vessels on the lake. "Nancy" was the only British ship remaining on the Upper Lakes. On 5 October, as Captain MacIntosh returned to the Detroit River, he sent some of the crew ashore to discover the situation. A storm blew up and MacIntosh entered the river anyway, as his anchors and cables were defective. A group of American militia on the river bank demanded that the schooner surrender. Instead, once the wind allowed, MacIntosh weighed anchor and sailed back up the river and into the lake. Although two American armed schooners and a gunboat were lying in wait for him further down the river, "Nancy" was damaged only by musket fire from the shore.