I understand your point, but my question was related to only a military action between official combatants. What occured in Alexandria in the death of Ellsworth was a civil/martial law incident and not what I'm looking for.

The reason I am looking for the first combat death is to determine what was the military objective (and where) and who was the agressor.

I found the story of Thornsbury Baily Brown on the internet...this is the type of incident I expected to find; however, I would like to comfirm that this is truely the first combat death.

David