Alexander Hamilton

**The Storming of Redoubts 9 and 10 at Yorktown** By the autumn of 1781, the American War of Independence had dragged on for more than six years, and both sides were weary. British Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis, commanding a force of roughly 8,000 troops, had marched his army into the small tobacco port of Yorktown, Virginia, establishing a defensive position on the York River. His decision to fortify Yorktown was based on the expectation that the Royal Navy would maintain control of the Chesapeake Bay and could either reinforce or evacuate his army as needed. That expectation proved fatally wrong. In early September, a French fleet under Admiral François Joseph Paul de Grasse defeated a British naval force at the Battle of the Capes, sealing off the bay and trapping Cornwallis on the peninsula. Meanwhile, General George Washington and French Lieutenant General Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau, marched a combined Franco-American army south from New York, converging on Yorktown with nearly 17,000 soldiers. By late September, the allied forces had surrounded Cornwallis by land and sea, and formal siege operations began. The siege followed classical European methods. Engineers dug a first parallel — a long trench running roughly parallel to the British lines — from which allied artillery could bombard the enemy fortifications. The bombardment that opened on October 9 was devastating, dismounting British guns, setting ships ablaze in the harbor, and steadily reducing the earthen defenses. To tighten the noose further, the allies needed to dig a second parallel even closer to the British works. However, two small but well-placed British earthen fortifications, known as Redoubts 9 and 10, anchored the eastern end of the British defensive line and blocked the extension of this second trench. As long as these redoubts stood, the siege could not advance to its decisive phase. Allied commanders determined that both positions would have to be taken by direct assault. On the night of October 14, 1781, two assault columns moved forward in coordinated attacks. French troops were assigned to storm Redoubt 9, the larger and more heavily garrisoned of the two positions, while American light infantry under Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton were tasked with capturing Redoubt 10. Hamilton, then just twenty-six years old and eager to prove himself on the battlefield after years of distinguished but largely administrative service on Washington's staff, had lobbied hard for the command. Washington granted it, and Hamilton prepared his men with meticulous care. In a decision that reflected both tactical cunning and extraordinary confidence in his soldiers, Hamilton ordered his troops to advance with unloaded muskets, relying entirely on the bayonet. This ensured silence during the approach, preventing premature musket flashes from revealing their position, and it guaranteed speed, since soldiers would not pause to fire and reload but would instead press directly into the enemy works. At the signal, both columns surged forward under cover of darkness. Hamilton's Americans reached Redoubt 10 within minutes, hacking through wooden abatis barriers with axes and scrambling over the earthen walls. The entire assault lasted roughly ten minutes, and the redoubt was captured with relatively light casualties among the attackers. The French assault on Redoubt 9, though it met stiffer resistance from a larger garrison, also succeeded. The discipline and ferocity of both attacks demonstrated how far the Continental Army had come from the raw militia force that had struggled in the war's early years. These were professional soldiers executing a complex night operation with precision. The capture of the two redoubts had immediate and profound consequences. Allied engineers quickly incorporated the positions into the second parallel, extending the siege trench line and bringing heavy artillery within punishingly close range of the remaining British defenses. The bombardment that followed was relentless and unbearable. Cornwallis, his fortifications crumbling, his troops decimated by fire and disease, and his hopes of naval rescue extinguished, attempted a desperate evacuation across the York River on the night of October 16 but was thwarted by a sudden storm. On October 17, a British drummer appeared on the parapet, followed by an officer waving a white handkerchief. Two days later, on October 19, 1781, Cornwallis surrendered his entire army. The storming of Redoubts 9 and 10 was the tactical turning point that made that surrender inevitable. More broadly, the victory at Yorktown effectively ended major combat operations in the Revolutionary War and set the stage for the Treaty of Paris in 1783, which recognized American independence. For Alexander Hamilton, the assault marked a defining moment of personal courage that would burnish his reputation as he moved into the political career that awaited him. For the young American republic, Yorktown proved that its citizen army, fighting alongside its French allies, could match and defeat one of the most powerful military forces in the world.