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Knights of the Sea: The True Story of the Boxer and the Enterprise and the War of 1812 (2012)

von David Hanna

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On a September day in 1813, as the Age of Fighting Sail was coming to an end, two maritime warriors faced each other in the waters off Pemaquid Point, Maine. Samuel Blyth was the youthful commander of His Britannic Majesty's brig Boxer, and William Burrows, younger still, commanded the USS Enterprise. Both men valued honor over life and death, and on this day their commitment would be put to the ultimate test. The battle lasted less than an hour, and its outcome was uncertain, but when the cannon smoke cleared, the U.S. Navy's position in the war had changed. Historian David Hanna brings to life a lost era--a time when sailing vessels exchanged broadsides and naval officers considered it the highest honor to harness the wind to meet their foes.--From publisher description.… (mehr)
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Not bad; could have been better. Knights of the Sea is about the ship that initiated what eventually became the most famous name in American – and Federation – fleet history, the USS Enterprise.


Author David Hanna is a New York high school history teacher; perhaps that’s why Knights of the Sea sometimes has pacing and vocabulary that makes it seem like a “young adult” book. The initial chapters follow the careers of the captains (courtesy rank; Samuel Blyth was a commander and William Ward Burrows was a lieutenant) of HMS Boxer and USS Enterprise. Their paths to command were counterintuitive if you expect Englishmen to be arrogant aristocrats and Americans to be bluff Yankees; Blyth, the Englishman, came from a middle-class family with no “interest” and achieved rank by perseverance and bravery in battle (including a shore fight in French Guiana where he was hit by five Indian arrows – all in the same arm. Was he trying to catch them, or what?); Burrows, the American, came from a wealthy family and his father (also named William Ward Burrows) was the second Commandant of the United States Marine Corps. Still, there’s no hint that Burrows wasn’t an excellent officer – despite the personality quirk of always wearing civilian clothes rather than his uniform. Hanna couples narrating the captains’ careers with histories of their home towns; Portsmouth for Blyth and Philadelphia for Burrows. He almost seems to be stretching to fill space here, as the loss of the Mary Rose and Royal George were certainly important events in Portsmouth history but don’t have much bearing on Blyth’s life; the 1793 Philadelphia cholera epidemic might have a little more relation to Burrows, as it occurred when he was 10 years old, but Hanna never connects it. I suppose both men probably absorbed some of the ethos of their birthplaces – and, to be fair, there isn’t that much in the way of direct biographical material.


There had been two previous American ships named Enterprise – both Continental Navy vessels, so not actually “USS Enterprise”. The third Enterprise started out as a schooner with twelve 6 pounders when launched in 1799 and was rebuilt as a topsail schooner, still with twelve 6-pounders. She served in the “Quasi-War” against revolutionary France and against the Barbary Pirates; it’s not clear when the first rebuilding took place but a painting shows her as a topsail schooner capturing a Tripolitanian warship. In 1812 she was cut in half, had a twelve-foot section added, and converted to a brig with fourteen 18-pounder carronades and two long nines. The HMS Boxer was brand new; launched in 1812 she was one of a large (more than 150) of brig-sloops that had a reputation for being slow and undergunned; she mounted twelve 18-pounder carronades and two long sixes. Hanna’s description of the ships is weak; there’s no explanation of schooner versus ship rig, or how a brig was different from a ship, or that “sloop” in naval parlance meant any unrated vessel rather than referring to the vessel’s rig (which was the civilian usage). He also uses the idiosyncratic “HBMS” to refer to English ships; this prefix had been officially replaced by “HMS” in 1789.


The book’s middle third is a summary of the entire War of 1812. Here again I get the feeling that Hanna is speaking to a young adult audience; there’s a lot of emphasis on how unpopular the war was – with obligatory comparisons between James Madison and George Bush, and between Canada and Iraq. In an even stranger interlude, Hanna explains how military officers might feel it’s their duty to fight even in an unpopular war, and attributes John Kerry’s election loss to unpopularity with veterans – as if there couldn’t possibly be any other reason for it. Well, I suppose if you are trying to relate history to high school students that’s a tack you can take but it seems really out of place here. Hanna notes – and decries – British impressment of American sailors as a casus belli but doesn’t relate this to an idea that might actually resonate with 21st century high school students – that the War of 1812 was fought to establish that it was possible to become a naturalized American citizen.


Sadly, the actual depiction of the engagement between HMS Boxer and USS Enterprise is one of the weakest parts of the book. Hanna’s coverage of the two captains’ biographies, their cities, and the history and politics of the war are well done, even given some strange choices for modern analogues; with the battle, though, Hanna’s already demonstrated unfamiliarity with the details of naval war comes out again. There’s a map of the general location off the coast of main, with times and ship tracks, and another map of ship positions during the battle, but neither includes the wind direction which is vital to understanding the ships’ movements coming into engagement. Once the shooting started all we can tell from Hanna’s description is that there was a lot of cannon fire and at the end of it HMS Boxer surrendered. Fortunately, by reading between the lines and using other sources it’s possible to deduce what went on.


Commander Blyth, like many British officers, was greatly underpaid (especially considering his middle-class background) and sought to supplement his military pay with a little smuggling. The New England states were more than willing to accommodate; they hated the war (at one point holding a meeting to consider succession). Charles Tappan and Associates was a syndicate of Maine importers who had moved their headquarters to St. Johns; they had a shipload of British textiles on board the Margaretta, registered in Sweden and headed for Pemaquid Harbor, Maine. However, they needed protection from American privateers (since the shipment originated in England it was technically contraband) and from English blockaders (since they were trying to get into an American port). Blyth was quite happy to provide the later; in return for a £100 bill of exchange on a London bank. A Royal Navy commander’s annual salary in 1813 seems to have been around £200, so it must have seemed like a sweet deal to Blyth. He went so far as to tow the Margaretta part way to Maine, and they neared harbor HMS Boxer staged a mock attack on her to deceive any customs official on shore. Unfortunately the mock attack was Blyth’s undoing; it was witnessed by a fisherman who headed south to inform the USS Enterprise, 40 miles away in Portland. The tide was against her but Burrows broke out the sweeps and got USS Enterprise out to sea in the early morning of September 5th, 1813.


No Royal Navy captain could honorably evade battle with a warship of even approximately equal strength so when HMS Boxer spotted USS Enterprise hull down at daybreak on the 5th Blyth waited for her to come up. Enterprise took her time; the ships were half a pistol shot (ten yards) apart when they opened fire at about 15:15. Blyth got off the first broadside but it went over. I wonder what happened? Was it just bad practice on the part of Boxer’s gun crews, or was Blyth trying to cut up Enterprise’s sails so he could move ahead and rake her? Perhaps, as some of Enterprise’s braces were shot away, but we’ll never know for sure. Enterprise didn’t miss with her return fire; a 18-pounder carronade ball hit Blyth in the midsection. Enterprise reloaded and got off another broadside before Boxer replied, took down her main topmast, cut in front and raked her, turned, and ended up broadside on to Boxer’s bow when the surviving senior officer, Lieutenant McCreary, wisely struck (with some difficulty, as Blyth had nailed the flags to the masts) at about 15:45. The Boxer had 25 killed and around 35 wounded (out of a complement of about 66); Enterprise had three killed and 14 wounded – but one of the fatalities was Burrows, who was hit in the groin by a musket ball and died that evening. Enterprise was not that much stronger in weight of metal, at fourteen 18-pounder carronades to Boxer’s twelve, had a larger crew – around 100 – got off two broadsides for each of Boxer’s, and, according to testimony at McCreary’s court martial, was more accurate (although it must have been hard to miss at 10 yards). Blyth and Burrows were buried side-by-side, both with full honors, in a Portland cemetery.


The bill of exchange from Tappan was found in Blyth’s effects. I assume the Mainers were a little embarrassed by that; it was presumably cashed at some unknown time but in the interim $500 in silver was collected and sent to Blyth’s widow (the transaction wasn’t made public until sixty years later). The Enterprise was awarded full prize money for Boxer, as she was judged “equal or greater” in strength. Boxer was disarmed and auctioned off for use as a merchant vessel; Hanna can’t trace her past 1845 but she was still afloat then. Enterprise ran aground off Little Curaҫao in 1823. Needless to say, the name Enterprise has been reused a few times; interestingly enough, the victor’s rights to a captured ship’s name was also applied to the Boxer with six American ships bearing that name, including an Essex-class carrier and a Wasp-class LHD currently on active duty. (Because the USS Constitution is still in commission, this isn’t the only case where the US Navy has had two ships in commission named after an American ship and her opponent in battle – there have been two USS Guerrieres and a USS Java – but AFAIK it’s the only case involving modern ships).


As said, not bad but a little idiosyncratic and uneven. The illustrations are contemporary or near-contemporary line drawings and engravings. The overall position map is adequate but doesn’t include wind direction; the battle map doesn’t tell you much and must be supplemented by external sources. References are mostly secondary works, including Patrick O’Brian novels (for “color” quotations). The 200th anniversary of the battle is coming up in a couple of months; a glass of grog in honor of the crews of Boxer and Enterprise might be an appropriate remembrance.
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  setnahkt | Dec 14, 2017 |
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To the crew of the Boxer; enemies by law, but by gallantry brothers.
-- Toast made at naval dinner in honor of
the crew of the USS Enterprise,
Portland, Maine, 1813
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September 5, 1813
Early September is a delicious time of year along the Maine coast.
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On a September day in 1813, as the Age of Fighting Sail was coming to an end, two maritime warriors faced each other in the waters off Pemaquid Point, Maine. Samuel Blyth was the youthful commander of His Britannic Majesty's brig Boxer, and William Burrows, younger still, commanded the USS Enterprise. Both men valued honor over life and death, and on this day their commitment would be put to the ultimate test. The battle lasted less than an hour, and its outcome was uncertain, but when the cannon smoke cleared, the U.S. Navy's position in the war had changed. Historian David Hanna brings to life a lost era--a time when sailing vessels exchanged broadsides and naval officers considered it the highest honor to harness the wind to meet their foes.--From publisher description.

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