KNIGHTS OF THE SEA 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 between the Boxer and the Enterprise would  be the only major sea engagement of the War of 1812 witnessed by people  on land, and, though it lasted less than an hour, was a brutal contest  whose outcome was uncertain. When the cannon smoke cleared, good men  had been lost, and the U.S. Navy's position in the war had changed.In Knights of the Sea, David Hanna brings to vivid 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. This history pays tribute to the young commanders on either  side, a vanishing breed who would come to be standard bearers of  courage and fortitude, and would be immortalized in words by the poet  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Includes Illustrations Throughout The battle between the Boxer and the Enterprise came  to represent for those who witnessed it, lived through it, and  remembered it something more than a military turning point-it became  emblematic of a maritime era that would soon be gone forever.