Cornwallis Surrenders at Yorktown....

On this date in the year of seventeen eighty one, General Lord Cornwallis was forced to surrender his entire southern army to General George Washington, after a Continental siege at Yorktown, Virginia. The following passage is from the novel, “Then…A Patriot I’ll Be”. It recounts the events that lead up to, as well as transpired on that day…



Cornwallis's Southern Army Surrenders at Yorktown



In early September of seventeen eighty one, the French fleet that had been promised to the American cause had finally arrived from the West Indies under the command of the French Admiral Comte de Grasse. Originally, he had planned to launch an all out bombardment from the sea on the British stronghold of New York City, while General Washington resumed a land based attack. However, after further consideration from General Washington, Lieutenant General Comte de Rochambeau; who had been sent from France with over seven thousand troops to assist our effort (and coordinate moves with Comte de Grasse and his navy), and the French admiral himself, it was decided to attack Cornwallis’s army in the south instead; as the British general’s forces had been severely compromised due to the heavy fighting (and subsequent losses they incurred) during the southern campaign.

Much like the original plan of attack designed for New York, a combined land and sea effort was decided upon. General Washington, and Rochambeau moved their large numbered foot armies toward Yorktown, Virginia; where Lord Cornwallis had (under the orders of Sir Henry Clinton), began to throw up defenses in an effort to fortify the town until the British Navy could get to the Chesapeake Bay and evacuate his crippled army to New York. At the same time, Comte de Grasse sailed his fleet into the Chesapeake Bay in order to block Cornwallis’s army from the salvation of the British fleet from the sea.

Shortly after de Grasse’s arrival in the Chesapeake Bay, he encountered the British fleet, intended to save Cornwallis, under the command of Admiral Graves. Naturally, a massive sea battle ensued, and due to the French admiral’s brilliance as a naval tactician, the British fleet was defeated, and forced to sail north toward the protection of New York Harbor; thus leaving Cornwallis’s army alone and cut off from support from the sea by the French fleet; that now occupied and blockaded Chesapeake Bay. Toward the end of September, Washington and Rochambeau arrived with their army and promptly cut off any avenues of escape for the British. The situation had officially turned dire for Cornwallis. He was essentially surrounded at Yorktown, and soon the American-French forces would begin to encroach on his location further.

Washington began to order entrenchments dug, and the combined American-French forces began to creep closer to the British outer defenses. The whole time the trenches were being dug, colonial artillery was fired, and began to decimate much of British redoubts; thus enabling the American trenches to be dug closer and closer toward the British stronghold. As if this wasn’t a dire enough situation for Cornwallis; de Grasse’s fleet in the Chesapeake began to bombard his fortifications from the sea. The British general was taking heavy losses, and quickly running out of ammunition and supplies for his men. Unfortunately for Cornwallis and his men, there was no hope in getting replenished, as his avenues from both land and sea had been severed. Cornwallis was all alone at Yorktown, and the only option open to him and his men was to fend for themselves. All the while, the American entrenchments continued to press further toward the nearly crippled British; continental cannons continued to rain their deadly projectiles down upon them. For Cornwallis, it now began to seem that even the option of “fending for themselves” may no longer be a viable one for his surrounded army.

On October seventeenth, through the smoke and noise of the bombardment, a lone drummer was heard beating a somber cadence. Along with this musician, stood a British officer waving a white handkerchief, indicating that a peaceful talk was requested. Washington ordered the bombardment briefly stopped, and the officer was chaperoned behind the American lines for his requested meeting. During the meeting, the officer requested (as representation of Cornwallis), that Washington accept the surrender of the British army at Yorktown; consisting of nearly eight thousand men. The British requested to surrender with full military honor with their colors unfurled, and muskets shouldered. Washington however, refused this request, as the British allowed no such honor for the American forces captured at Charleston nearly one year and a half earlier. Instead, he set the terms of the surrender to include the British being required to have their flags furled, and their muskets and weapons were to be carried backward on their shoulders (as a signal of defeat) and deposited on the ground as the captured men walked through a lane made up of American soldiers on one side, and French soldiers on the other. Being in such a defeated state, and not having the luxury of a bargaining platform, the British begrudgingly accepted Washington’s terms of surrender.

Two days later, the surrender was signed, and became official. Cornwallis’s entire southern army was marched through the American-French lines, and laid down their arms in defeat. The rank and file was declared as prisoners of war, and the officers were allowed to return back to England once there were paroled. Although it has been suspected that Cornwallis hid in shame, he claimed to be ill during the surrendering of his army, and instead of presenting his sword to Washington personally, chose to send out his second in command to perform the duty in his stead. Washington didn’t accept the sword, as it wasn’t handed to him by Cornwallis himself. Instead, he had the sword surrendered to Benjamin Lincoln; his second in command.

With Cornwallis surrendering his army of nearly eight thousand men to Washington at Yorktown, it caused a shock to occur throughout the British command, and it traveled all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to England itself. The King and Parliament were now faced with the unenviable predicament of how to conduct the remainder of the war with such a massive loss in men...