Surrender at Yorktown

The Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown A.D. 1781,
[ca.1870].
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On October 19, 1781, British General Charles Cornwallis surrendered his army of some 8,000 men to General George Washington at Yorktown, giving up any chance of winning the Revolutionary War. Cornwallis had marched his army into the Virginia port town earlier that summer expecting to meet British ships sent from New York. The ships never arrived.

In early October, approximately 17,000 American and French troops led by Generals George Washington and Jean-Baptiste Rochambeau, respectively, surrounded British-occupied Yorktown. Off the coast, French Admiral François de Grasse strategically positioned his naval fleet to control access to the town via the Chesapeake Bay and the York River.

A Plan of the Entrance of Chesapeak [sic] Bay, with James and York Rivers;…
1781.
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The Franco-American siege exhausted the British army's supplies of food and ammunition. With no hope for escape, Cornwallis agreed to the terms of Washington's Articles of Capitulation, signing the document at Moore House on October 19. Hours after the surrender, the general's defeated troops marched out of Yorktown to the tune "The World Turned Upside Down."

During his occupation of Yorktown, General Cornwallis set up headquarters in the Thomas Nelson House. The residence saw wartime action again during the Civil War, when it was used as a hospital.

Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown effectively ended the Revolutionary War. Lacking the financial resources to raise a new army, the British government appealed to the Americans for peace. Almost two years later, on September 3, 1783, the signing of the Treaty of Paris brought the war to an end.

Learn more about Yorktown and America's fight for independence:

• Search on Cornwallis or Yorktown in George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799.
• For more Civil War photographs of Yorktown, including images of troops, camps, and artillery, search on Yorktown in Selected Civil War Photographs.
• Visit the America during the Age of Revolution, 1776-1789 timeline featured in Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789 for more information on the Revolutionary War.
• A Guide to the American Revolution, 1763-1783 and Primary Documents in American History: The American Revolution and the New Nation are rich in materials related to this era. Visit the Web guides for links to a wide variety of information on the Revolutionary War.
• Military Battles and Campaigns contains maps of major military conflicts including troop movements, defensive structures and groundworks, roads to and from sites of military engagements, campsites and local buildings, and topography and vegetation. The Rochambeau Map Collection, part of this Web site, contains forty manuscript and twenty-six printed maps, as well as a manuscript atlas used by comte de Rochambeau when he was commander in chief of the French expeditionary army (1780-82) during the American Revolution. Use the navigator or zoom views to see battle plans, surveys, and more.
• Search the Today in History Archive on Revolutionary War to see features such as those concerning the Battle of Bunker Hill and the birth of the Revolutionary war hero Nathanael Greene.