Combat· Quasi-War with France
Baltimore vs French privateer
The USS Baltimore engaged a French privateer in the West Indies, and the fight cost the Marines one of their own.
Private Jacob Burgis, of Second Lieutenant John Claypoole's detachment, was killed by a shot from the privateer that passed through his left wrist and lodged in his heart at the instant he discharged his own musket. The action was one of countless skirmishes between American warships and French privateers across the Caribbean, and Burgis's death is preserved in Marine Corps records as an early operational loss of the reauthorized Corps.
Podcast episodes on Quasi-War with France
Record no. 178