Gloucester Raid

The British Army was under siege in Yorktown and running short of supplies. Cornwallis sent Tarleton to Gloucester, just across the York River, to search for supplies. Tarleton, believing that he only faced militia, sent out raiding parties. Mercer, however, …

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The British Army was under siege in Yorktown and running short of supplies. Cornwallis sent Tarleton to Gloucester, just across the York River, to search for supplies. Tarleton, believing that he only faced militia, sent out raiding parties. Mercer, however, had recently been reinforced by French troops. Not far from Gloucester a storehouse of supplies was discovered, but before these could be recovered, the French launched an attack. The fighting was fierce. The British were finally forced to retire when Mercer’s troops joined the battle.

Gloucester, Virginia

The Siege of Yorktown, also known as the Battle of Yorktown, the surrender at Yorktown, or the German Battle, ending on October 19, 1781, at Yorktown, Virginia, was a decisive victory by a combined force of American Continental Army troops led by General George Washington and French Army troops led by the Comte de Rochambeau over a British army commanded by British peer and Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis. The culmination of the Yorktown campaign, the siege proved to be the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War in the North American region, as the surrender by Cornwallis, and the capture of both him and his army, prompted the British government to negotiate an end to the conflict. The battle boosted faltering American morale and revived French enthusiasm for the war, as well as undermining popular support for the conflict in Great Britain.

Wikipedia: Siege of Yorktown (1781)

Continental Army

Great Britain