Siege of Yorktown

Siege of Yorktown with the American Colonist and British Part of the American Revolutionary War Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown by John Trumbull. Oil on canvas, 1820. Date 28 September-19 October, 1781 Location Yorktown, Virginia Result Decisive Franco-American victory Belligerents United States Kingdom of France Great Britain German Mercenaries Commanders and leaders George Washington Nathanael Greene Jean-Baptiste de Rochambeau François de Grasse Gilbert de La Fayette Charles Cornwallis (POW) Charles O’Hara (POW) Banastre Tarleton (POW) (stationed at Gloucester, Virginia) Strength 19,300 soldiers (10,800 French 8,500 Americans) 24 French warships 375 guns (see below) 7,500 240 guns Casualties and losses 62 killed 190 wounded 156 killed, 326 wounded, 7,018 captured

The Siege of Yorktown or Battle of Yorktown in 1781 was a decisive victory by a combined assault of French forces led by General Comte de Rochambeau and American forces led by General George Washington, over a British Army commanded by General Lord Cornwallis. It proved to be the last major battle of the American Revolutionary War, as the surrender of Cornwallis’s army prompted the British government to eventually negotiate an end to the conflict.

Background

When General Rochambeau met General Washington in Wethersfield, Connecticut on 22 May 1781 to determine their strategy against the British, they made plans to move against New York City, which was occupied by about 10,000 men under General Sir Henry Clinton, the commander-in-chief in North America.

Meanwhile, word had come through to Washington that Pensacola, a key British port in Florida, under command of John Campbell, had surrendered to Spanish and French forces on May 10, 1781 following a siege and bombardment. General La Fayette in Virginia also informed Washington that Cornwallis had taken up a defensive position at Yorktown, Virginia, next to the York River. Cornwallis had been campaigning in the southern states. He had cut a wide swath, but his army of 7,500 were forced to give up their dominion of the South and retreat to Yorktown for supplies and reinforcement after an intense two-year campaign led by General Nathanael Greene, who winnowed down their numbers through application of the Fabian strategy. Under instructions from Clinton, Cornwallis moved the army to Yorktown in order to be extracted by the Royal Navy.

On 17 July 1781, while encamped at Dobbs Ferry, New York, Washington learned of the Virginia campaign of Cornwallis and wrote that “I am of Opinion, that under these Circumstances, we ought to throw a sufficient Garrison into West Point; leave some Continental Troops and Militia to cover the Country contiguous to New York, and transport the Remainder (both French and American) to Virginia, should the Enemy still keep a Force there."

See also: Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route

On August 18, George Washington received confirmation that French Admiral François de Grasse, stationed in the West Indies, was sailing with his fleet to the Chesapeake Bay.

British intelligence was good, but there is some evidence that the British realized the Americans and the French were marching south to attack Cornwallis at Yorktown. A letter, known as the “Wethersfield Intercept,” was captured by the British on its way to the Comte de Rochambeau from the French ambassador to Congress. However, this letter was in a French military cipher, and by the time the British were able to understand its meaning, Washington and Rochambeau had already started marching to Yorktown, so its value was limited. Despite this, Sir Henry Clinton was to claim after the war that he had deciphered the letter earlier than had previously been claimed, and had been acting on the basis of its content.

Battle of Yorktown

Admiral de Grasse sailed his fleet of twenty-eight warships north toward Virginia. Simultaneously, on 21 August 1781, Washington began moving his army south. As they marched south, Admiral De Grasses’s fleet arrived at the Chesapeake Bay. De Grasse defeated Admiral Thomas Graves’s fleet in the Battle of the Chesapeake, also known as the “Battle of the Capes,” and won control of the bay, thereby sealing its entrance and stranding Cornwallis from supply by sea. The defeat in Chesapeake Bay was the only major naval defeat suffered by the Royal Navy of Great Britain in two hundred years of empire building in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In the late summer of 1781 when George Washington and Rochambeau heard of Lord Cornwallis’s encampment in Yorktown, they raced southward from New York to link up with the French fleet under de Grasse in Chesapeake Bay. Washington arrived just in time to bottle-up the British, who were anticipating reinforcements that never came from either General Clinton or the British fleet.

On September 28, 1781, Washington and Rochambeau, along with La Fayette’s troops and 3,000 of de Grasse’s men, arrived at Yorktown. With them was the 2nd Canadian Regiment lead by Brigadier General Moses Hazen. In all, there were nearly 20,000 men converging on the camp established by Cornwallis. With the arrival of these troops, the stranded British forces in Yorktown were outnumbered by a two-to-one margin and they were then subjected to heavy fire as work began on a siege line. Offshore, the French fleet effectively blocked aid for Cornwallis while Washington made life unbearable for the British troops with three weeks of shelling. The Allies placed up to 375 guns, mortars and siege weaponry along their lines to bombard Yorktown. They fired some 1,700 shells and bombs per day, on average 1.2 every minute, or 1,728 per day. By the time the Siege ended, some 36,288 shots were fired into Yorktown. The British on the other hand had 240 pieces of artillery, mainly light guns and mortars. The British had hardly any equipment and no horses to drag their guns into position, so they were of little use.

Redoubt No. 10, July 2006

Cornwallis, realizing the scope of his predicament, managed to send a message to Clinton in New York. Clinton promised that a relief expedition carrying 5,000 men would leave by the 5th of October. Meanwhile, the British and Franco-American forces were digging in and improving their respective earthworks. On October 11, the allies started a second siege line only 400 yards (400 m) away from the British forces. Three days later, the French and Americans captured two major British redoubts, the French taking redoubt 9 and the Americans taking redoubt 10, completing the second siege line and the close investment of the British garrison.

While the allies were enveloping his position, Cornwallis had found out that the relief force from New York was going to be late. On October 16, a British attack hoping to silence a French battery failed. The allied batteries, from their closer second siege line, were now firing directly into the British defensive works. That night, Cornwallis attempted to pass part of his force across the river to Tarleton's position, but was thwarted by a storm. Had the weather not been so bad, Cornwallis could have passed his entire force across the river, broken through the smaller Allied siege works and marched hard north. However, Cornwallis, whose army was running low on food and ammunition and still awaiting help from Clinton, offered to surrender on October 17. On 19 October, the papers were signed by Cornwallis and Thomas Symonds (the most senior naval officer present) and the pair officially surrendered. About 7,000 British troops became prisoners of the American forces. 5 days after the surrender, Clinton's relief arrived.

Conclusion

The British surrendering at Yorktown on October 19, 1781

The morning following the battle a formal surrender ceremony took place. Although absent at the surrender ceremony, due to malaria, Cornwallis observed to George Washington, “This is a great victory for you, but your brightest laurels will be writ upon the banks of the Delaware.” According to legend, the British forces marched to the fife tune of “The World Turned Upside Down,” though no real evidence of this exists. Cornwallis’ deputy, General O’Hara, at first attempted to surrender to the French General Rochambeau, but Rochambeau’s aide-de-camp, Mathieu Dumas, is reputed to have said, “Vous vous trompez, le général en chef de notre armée est à la droite.” (“You are mistaken, the commander-in-chief of our army is to the right.”) and then took him to Washington. O’Hara then attempted to surrender to Washington, who refused because it was not Cornwallis himself, and indicated that the subordinate should surrender to General Benjamin Lincoln, field commander of the American forces. O’Hara ceremonially offered his sword to Lincoln, who finally accepted. All other British troops were required to surrender and trample their firearms in the custom of the time. One Redcoat, of the Seventy First Highland Regiment, was reported to have remarked "you can never have as good a Master as I was!", and emotionally threw down his musket. It is said when news of the surrender reached London, Prime Minister Lord North emotionally broke down and said "Oh my God! It's all over!"

The British prisoners amounted to approximately one third of British regulars present in the United States. It was not clear at the time that Yorktown was the climax of the war, since the British still occupied key ports such as New York City and Charlestown, South Carolina. Sporadic fighting continued after the Yorktown surrender, and Washington believed the war might drag on for another year.

The news of Cornwallis's surrender, reaching Britain in mid-November, sparked off a sequence of events in Parliament which led to the resignation of the British Prime Minister, Lord North in 20 March 1782, and the fall of a ministry which had lasted for twelve years. His successors decided that it was no longer in Britain’s best interest to continue the war, and negotiations were undertaken. The British signed the Treaty of Paris in September 1783 recognizing the United States and promising to remove all British troops from the country.

References

• Artillery at Yorktown [1]
• Adams, Randolph G. “A View of Cornwallis’s Surrender at Yorktown.” American Historical Review 1931 37(1): 25-49. Issn: 0002-8762 Fulltext: online at Jstor
• Bicheno, H. Rebels and Redcoats, The American Revolutionary War, London 2003
• Clement, R: “The World Turned Upside Down at the Surrender of Yorktown”, Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 363 (Jan. - Mar., 1979), pp. 66-67 (available on Jstor)
• Hibbert, C: Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolution Through British Eyes, London, 2001
• Jerome Greene. Guns of Independence: The Siege of Yorktown, 1781 (2005)
• Higginbotham, Don. The War of American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practice, 1763-1789. (1983). ISBN 0-930350-44-8. Online in ACLS History E-book Project
• Richard M. Ketchum. Victory at Yorktown: The Campaign That Won the Revolution (2004)
• Brendan Morrissey and Adam Hook. Yorktown 1781: The World Turned Upside Down (1994) British perspective
• Tuchman, Barbara W. The First Salute 1988, chapter on battle
• Ward, Christopher. The War of the Revolution. 1952, vol 2
• Willcox, W: “The British Road to Yorktown: A Study in Divided Command”, The American Historical Review, Vol. 52, No. 1. (Oct., 1946), pp. 1-35 in JSTOR
• Wood, W. J. Battles of the Revolutionary War, 1775–1781. ISBN 0-306-81329-7 (2003)
• Wright, J: “Notes on the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 with Special Reference to the Conduct of a Siege in the Eighteenth Century,” William and Mary Quarterly, 2nd Ser., Vol. 12, No. 4 (Oct., 1932), pp. 229-249,
• Jean-Baptiste Antoine de Verger’s Account of 14 October 1781 attack on Redoubt 9 at Yorktown.
• Could the British Have Won at Yorktown Page 18

See also

• Yorktown order of battle
• Battle of Yorktown (1862), the American Civil War battle
• USS Yorktown, for a list of U.S. Navy ships named after the battle

External links

• National Park Service history of the siege
• Order of battle at Yorktown
• [2] The Role of the Spanish and Latin Americans in the Battle of Yorktown
• 1931 Army War College history of the siege
• Siege of Yorktown website
• Articles of Capitulation at Yorktown.