Siege of Yorktown (1781): Cornwallis Surrenders to Washington

The Siege of Yorktown was the decisive campaign of the American Revolutionary War, fought from 28 September to 19 October 1781 at the small tobacco port of Yorktown, Virginia. An allied army of Americans under George Washington and French troops under the Comte de Rochambeau trapped Lord Cornwallis’s British army against the York River, while a French fleet blocked any rescue by sea. Cornwallis’s surrender of some 8,000 men broke Britain’s will to continue the war and led to American independence.

Background: the war in the South

By 1781 the war had dragged on for six years. After the British defeat at Saratoga in 1777 and the alliance between France and the United States in 1778, Britain turned to the southern colonies, capturing Savannah in 1778 and Charleston in 1780. But the campaign in the Carolinas became a costly war of attrition. Defeats at Kings Mountain and Cowpens, and a bloody victory at Guilford Courthouse in March 1781, left Cornwallis’s army depleted.

Instead of returning to South Carolina, Cornwallis marched into Virginia in May 1781, hoping that cutting the supply lines through the state would collapse resistance further south. He joined British forces already raiding there, including troops under Benedict Arnold, and chased an American force under the young Marquis de Lafayette across the state without bringing it to battle.

The British commander-in-chief in New York, Sir Henry Clinton, disliked Cornwallis’s strategy and ordered him to establish a fortified base on the coast where the Royal Navy could support him. Cornwallis chose Yorktown, on the south bank of the York River, and Gloucester Point opposite it, and began fortifying both early in August 1781.

The allied plan and the march south

Washington had long hoped to attack New York, the main British base. In May 1781 he met Rochambeau, commander of the French army that had landed at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1780, and their two armies joined near New York in July. Then, in mid-August, came news that the French admiral François Joseph Paul, Comte de Grasse, would sail from the Caribbean to the Chesapeake Bay with his fleet and some 3,000 soldiers, but could stay only until mid-October.

Washington and Rochambeau quickly changed plans. Leaving a force to keep Clinton occupied, they set off south on 19 August with roughly 2,000–2,500 Continentals and about 4,000 French troops. Elaborate deceptions, including building ovens and camps in New Jersey, convinced Clinton that New York remained the target until the allies were well on their way.

The armies passed through Philadelphia in early September and moved by land and water down the Chesapeake towards Williamsburg, Virginia, where they joined Lafayette.

The Battle of the Chesapeake

De Grasse arrived in the Chesapeake at the end of August with 28 ships of the line, landed his troops to join Lafayette, and closed the mouth of the York River. On 5 September a British fleet of 19 ships of the line under Rear Admiral Thomas Graves appeared off the Virginia Capes.

The Battle of the Chesapeake, also called the Battle of the Virginia Capes, lasted about two and a half hours. Neither side lost a ship in the fighting, but several British ships were badly damaged. For several days the fleets manoeuvred within sight of each other, while a second French squadron under the Comte de Barras slipped into the bay from Newport carrying the allied siege artillery. Graves then returned to New York for repairs, leaving Cornwallis cut off by sea.

The siege

On 28 September the allied army, now around 16,000 to 19,000 strong including Virginia militia, marched from Williamsburg and took up positions around Yorktown. Cornwallis, expecting relief from New York, abandoned his outer works, allowing the allies to move close quickly.

On the night of 6 October the allies began digging the first parallel, a siege trench running parallel to the British defences about 600 yards away. On 9 October the guns opened fire; tradition holds that Washington fired one of the first American shots. For days heavy artillery pounded the town, destroying British guns and buildings and setting fire to ships in the river.

To complete a second, closer parallel, the allies needed two British strongpoints near the river, Redoubts 9 and 10. On the night of 14 October they were stormed simultaneously with bayonets: Redoubt 10 by about 400 American light infantry under Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton, and Redoubt 9 by about 400 French soldiers under the Comte de Deux-Ponts. Both fell within half an hour.

On 16 October a British sortie spiked several allied guns but was driven back. That night Cornwallis tried to ferry his army across the river to Gloucester Point, hoping to break out northwards, but a violent storm scattered the boats and the attempt was abandoned.

The surrender

On the morning of 17 October, the fourth anniversary of Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga, a British drummer appeared on the parapet, followed by an officer waving a white handkerchief, to request a ceasefire. Negotiations took place on 18 October at the Moore House, a farmhouse behind the allied lines, and the Articles of Capitulation were signed on the morning of 19 October.

That afternoon the British and German troops marched out between lines of French and American soldiers to lay down their arms. As the British had done at Charleston, the allies refused the defeated army the full honours of war: the troops had to march with their colours cased.

Cornwallis did not appear, citing illness. His deputy, Brigadier General Charles O’Hara, first tried to offer his sword to Rochambeau, who indicated Washington. Washington directed O’Hara to Major General Benjamin Lincoln, who had been forced to surrender at Charleston the previous year. Under the terms, troops at Gloucester Point surrendered as well.

By the numbers

Key people

George Washington commanded the allied army and coordinated the complex march south. Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau, led the French expeditionary army and brought European siege expertise. The Comte de Grasse made the campaign possible by bringing his fleet north and winning control of the Chesapeake.

Charles Cornwallis, the British commander, was an able general whose position depended on naval support that never came. The Marquis de Lafayette, a young French volunteer serving as an American major general, kept Cornwallis under watch in Virginia over the summer. Alexander Hamilton, later the first US Secretary of the Treasury, led the assault on Redoubt 10.

Consequences

A British relief fleet carrying Clinton and some 7,000 troops left New York on the very day of the surrender and arrived off the Chesapeake on 24 October, too late. News of Yorktown reached London in late November. Lord North, the prime minister, reportedly reacted with despair, and support for the war in Parliament collapsed.

On 27 February 1782 the House of Commons voted against continuing offensive war in America, and North resigned in March. The new government opened talks with the American commissioners in Paris, which produced the Treaty of Paris in 1783, recognising American independence.

Fighting did not stop at once. Skirmishes continued in the South and on the frontier, and Britain fought on against France and Spain at sea and in other theatres until 1783. Washington kept the Continental Army in being in case the war resumed, but no further major battle was fought in the United States.

Legacy

Yorktown became a symbol of American independence and of Franco-American friendship. The battlefield is part of Colonial National Historical Park, and the Yorktown Victory Monument, authorised by Congress in 1781, was finally completed in 1884. The surrender is shown in John Trumbull’s large painting in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol.

Myths and facts

Myth: the British band played The World Turned Upside Down. No eyewitness recorded which tune the British played. The story first appeared in print in the 1820s and is now regarded as unproven.

Myth: Yorktown was an American victory alone. French soldiers made up nearly half of the allied army, French engineers directed much of the siege, and the French navy sealed Cornwallis’s fate. The victory was a joint achievement.

Fact: the war did not end on 19 October 1781. Peace preliminaries were signed in November 1782, and the final treaty in September 1783.

Timeline

• 1781, 20 May: Cornwallis reaches Petersburg, Virginia.
• 1781, early August: Cornwallis begins fortifying Yorktown and Gloucester Point.
• 1781, 19 August: Washington and Rochambeau begin the march south.
• 1781, 30 August: De Grasse’s fleet arrives in Chesapeake Bay.
• 1781, 5 September: Battle of the Chesapeake.
• 1781, 28 September: Allied army arrives before Yorktown; the siege begins.
• 1781, 9 October: Allied artillery opens fire.
• 1781, 14 October: Redoubts 9 and 10 are stormed.
• 1781, 17 October: Cornwallis requests a ceasefire.
• 1781, 19 October: Articles of Capitulation signed; the British army surrenders.

Why it matters

Yorktown was the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War. By capturing an entire British field army, the Franco-American alliance convinced Britain that the war could not be won, opening the way to the peace that created the United States.