The British surrender at Yorktown signaled the end of the last major campaign of the Revolutionary War (177583) and ensured independence for the United States. The campaign was marked by confusion, poor choices, and misfortune on the part of the British, and superb planning, coordination between land and sea forces, and good luck on the part of the revolutionary Americans and the French.
The campaign began with General Charles, Lord Cornwallis’s decision to march into Virginia after his efforts in North Carolina brought few tangible results. Leaving Wilmington, North Carolina, on April 25, 1781, Cornwallis reached Petersburg, Virginia, by May 20. Once in Virginia he met Benedict Arnold, and another British army. With about 7,000 men, he unleashed a devastating series of raids that sacked the state’s capital and almost captured Governor Thomas Jefferson. Continental troops under the command of the marquis de Lafayette were no match for Cornwallis and could do little more than keep their distance and shadow his movements. In July the British commander in chief, General Henry Clinton, began to send a series of contradictory orders to Cornwallis. Clinton and Cornwallis had for some time had difficulty working together. Now Clinton sent Cornwallis reinforcements, then asked for them back, then told him to prepare to march
General Washington and the comte de Grasse surrounded British forces under General Cornwallis at Yorktown, leading to the eventual surrender of Cornwallis and a decisive victory for the Americans in their Revolution. (U. S. Army Center of Military History)
North to coordinate an attack on Philadelphia, then told him to occupy a town on the seacoast that could harbor the British navy. Cornwallis himself waffled, finally deciding to fortify a small tobacco port called Yorktown in August.
In the meantime General George Washington and the French commander General comte DE Rochambeau were planning an allied attack on New York City. That task began to look increasingly impossible in the summer of 1781. Then, on August 14, word arrived that the French fleet in the West Indies under the command of Admiral comte de Grasse was going to sail to the Chesapeake. With the possibility of obtaining, however briefly, naval superiority, Washington decided to try to trap Cornwallis at Yorktown. The French ships arrived off the Chesapeake on August 30 but could stay in the area only to the end of October. In the meantime, the revolutionary and French armies began a complex maneuver, marching and sailing their combined troops 400 miles south to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, while convincing Clinton that they still intended to attack New York. Washington, in particular, played a central role in planning this delicate operation. As the combined armies concentrated in southern Virginia in the first half of September, there was still the British fleet to worry about. Admiral Samuel Hood had left the West Indies in anticipation of de Grasse’s move and had joined Admiral Thomas Graves in New York. This British naval force was roughly equal to the French. The British navy sallied forth and met de Grasse in the Battle of the Capes (September 5, 1781), an indecisive contest. Although undefeated, the British ships returned to New York. The French headed back to the Chesapeake, sealing the fate of Cornwallis in Yorktown.
With half as many ground troops as the Franco-American armies, and boxed in by the French navy, Cornwallis was
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