The Enterprise vs. the Boxer

Skull, with lead ball lodged above the right orbit. The patient was a sail-maker on the Enterprise and was wounded in her battle with the Boxer. He lived with the wound for 25 years.

On September 5, 1813, off Pemaquid Point in Maine, the brig Enterprise chased and engaged the HMS Boxer. A thirty minute battle ensued that left the British captain, Samuel Blyth, dead and the American captain, William Burrows, mortally wounded. Captain Burrows died eight hours later. In addition to the two captains, twenty to twenty-five men on the Boxer were killed and fourteen wounded, and on the Enterprise twelve men were wounded, two of them mortally. The Boxer’s surgeon was not on board during the battle, having been left on Monhegan Island in the morning. A letter from Isaac Hull to surgeon Samuel Ayer dated September 6, requested that the latter assist Dr. Bailey Washington, the Enterprise’s surgeon, with treating the wounded from both ships. The two captains were buried in a joint funeral on September 9 in Portland.