Yorktown

The Allies skillfully built a network of trenches with little or no counter action by the British. At this point in the campaign Cornwallis had little choice. His casualty list was augmented daily by men sick with fever or other …

1781-09-08

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The Allies skillfully built a network of trenches with little or no counter action by the British. At this point in the campaign Cornwallis had little choice. His casualty list was augmented daily by men sick with fever or other illness. On October 9th the Allied artillery began direct shelling of the innermost British positions. Within two days the British endured consistent bombardment by over 50 allied cannon. With the British pinned down, the Allies continued to dig parallel trenches. There were only two obstacles completing the entrapment of the British forces. These were redoubts 9 and 10. They were formidable defenses. Any hope of British survival would be crushed if these defenses were carried.

Yorktown, 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