Yorktown

Yorktown: The Ground Where American Independence Was Won

On the morning of October 19, 1781, a long column of British and Hessian soldiers marched out of their battered earthworks at Yorktown, Virginia, filing between two lines of allied troops — American Continentals on one side, French regulars on the other — to the sound of fifes and drums reportedly playing a tune called "The World Turned Upside Down." Whether or not that particular melody actually accompanied the moment, the sentiment was apt. At Yorktown, on a bluff overlooking the York River in tidewater Virginia, the military struggle for American independence reached its decisive conclusion. No other place on the American landscape can claim the same distinction. The siege and surrender at Yorktown did not technically end the Revolutionary War — the Treaty of Paris would not be signed until September 1783 — but it shattered British political will to continue the conflict and made the recognition of American sovereignty all but inevitable. When news of the surrender reached London on November 25, Prime Minister Lord North reportedly declared, "Oh God. It is all over. It is all over." By March 5, 1782, Parliament had passed a bill authorizing the government to make peace with America, and North resigned fifteen days later. Understanding what happened at Yorktown, and why it happened there, is essential to understanding how the United States came into being.

Yorktown itself was no accidental stage for this drama. The area around Yorktown was settled in 1630, but the town developed after 1691, when a port was authorized by Virginia's General Assembly. It had been established in 1691 by an Act for Ports passed by the Virginia House of Burgesses. Yorktown became a busy shipping center, and its Colonial Custom House (1706; restored) is regarded as the cradle of the American tariff system. By 1750, however, its commercial role had declined together with the Tidewater Virginia tobacco trade.

The town reached the height of its development around 1750, when it had 250 to 300 buildings and a population of almost 2,000 people.

Yorktown village was established by the Virginia Port Act on land originally part of the Captain Nicholas Martiau tract. The 50-acre village was laid out in 85 half-acre lots on the bluffs above the York River. The original street and lot lines remain to this day. Land was left between the town lots and the river for development of wharves, stores and lodgings.

Even before the war's climactic battle took place on its soil, Yorktown had already played a role in the gathering resistance to British authority. While not as well-known as the Boston Tea Party, another tea party protest took place in Yorktown, Virginia. On November 7, 1774, local residents boarded the British ship Virginia and dumped two half-chests of tea into the York River. The tea had been imported despite the boycott on English goods that the first Virginia Revolutionary Convention had authorized in August 1774.

The boycott was an effort to pressure the British Parliament to repeal tax laws and regulations that some Virginia leaders believed were unconstitutional.

The merchant who had imported the tea wrote an apology in the newspaper and asked the public for forgiveness. The ship captain was also punished for his participation in bringing the tea into port in violation of the boycott.

Among Yorktown's most prominent citizens was Thomas Nelson Jr., a Founding Father, general in the Revolutionary War, member of the Continental Congress, and a Virginia planter who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Fellow Virginia legislators elected him to serve as the commonwealth's governor in 1781, the same year he fought as a brigadier general in the siege of Yorktown, the final major battle of the war.

According to family tradition, during the siege he told General Washington to shell his own mansion when he learned it was a British headquarters.

The Road to Yorktown: Strategy, Deception, and the French Alliance

To appreciate the significance of what happened at Yorktown, one must understand how the pieces fell into place — a convergence of American perseverance, French military power, and British miscalculation that was anything but inevitable.

By the summer of 1781, the United States had been at war with England for over six years. For the Continental Army, perpetually short of money and supplies, simply remaining intact and able to fight was a major accomplishment. A deep belief in the cause and an enduring faith in their leader, George Washington, kept the Army together. The arrival of French allies proved decisive. In the summer of 1780, the Americans received a major boost to their cause when 5,500 French troops, commanded by Comte de Rochambeau, arrived at Newport, Rhode Island.

In the spring of 1781, Washington and Rochambeau debated how to use their combined forces. Rochambeau marched to join Washington outside New York City in July, only to learn that the French fleet was sailing to the lower Chesapeake Bay. Washington changed his strategy: he would fool Clinton into thinking the Continentals were planning to attack New York while instead sneaking away to the south to attack Cornwallis.

Washington ordered the construction of large camps with huge brick bread ovens where Clinton could see them to create the illusion that the Continental Army was preparing for a long stay. Washington also prepared false papers discussing attack plans on Clinton, and let these papers fall into British hands. The deception worked. Clinton, however, convinced of an imminent attack on New York City, failed to send reinforcements until it was too late.

Intelligence operations also played a critical role. James Armistead, an enslaved Virginian, convinced his owner to let him volunteer with the Marquis de Lafayette in 1781. Posing as an enslaved runaway, Armistead infiltrated British forces under Charles Cornwallis himself. He then reported to Lafayette on Cornwallis's plans and movements. After the war, Armistead remained enslaved, but with Lafayette's assistance, gained his freedom in 1787.

Meanwhile, the key to the entire campaign hinged on control of the sea. In this tactically inconclusive but strategically decisive battle line action, the French successfully prevented the British fleet from entering Chesapeake Bay and relieving Major General Lord Cornwallis' army at Yorktown, Virginia.

On September 5, 1781, the French fleet, led by Comte de Grasse, clashed with a British fleet outside Chesapeake Bay. The French victory prevented British reinforcement and resupply of General Cornwallis's army at Yorktown.

Deciding not to attack the French, Graves withdrew north back to New York. This decision left de Grasse in control of the Chesapeake and effectively closed off any future aid to Cornwallis via the sea.

The Siege: September 28 – October 19, 1781

Here at Yorktown, in the fall of 1781, General George Washington, with allied American and French forces, besieged General Charles Lord Cornwallis's British army. On October 19, Cornwallis surrendered, effectively ending the war and ensuring independence.

On September 29 the American and French forces moved into a crescent-shaped line surrounding Yorktown, the French occupying the left half of the lines with the Americans on the right. The next day Cornwallis responded by pulling his troops back to an inner defensive line which would be more effectively defended with the troops he had. At this point Washington's army outnumbered the British by a margin of over 2 to 1.

The allied forces wasted no time pressing their advantage. On the night of October 6th work began on the allies' first advance parallel, which when finished would surround the British at a distance of between 600 and 800 yards. For more than a week, the two sides exchanged devastating artillery fire.

Among those manning the American siege lines were African American soldiers. African Americans were