Battle of Yorktown

The entry of France into the Revolutionary War in May 1778 gave Americans hope that they might achieve victory rather than just stave off defeat, for French naval power could impede the flow of British resources across the Atlantic and help to trap British forces in the seaports from which they operated. Yet it was not until the autumn of 1781 that four factors combined to produce a decisive victory.

First, Gen. George Washington kept the Continental army in the field despite shortages of money, clothing, food, and ammunition. Second, the leaders of the French army (Rochambeau) and fleet (de Grasse) were competent commanders, willing to cooperate with one another and with Washington. Third, the British had concentrated their resources in home waters to forestall invasion. Ships sent across the Atlantic were responsible for protecting both the West Indies and British coastal enclaves in North America. Fourth, Britain's efforts to use loyalists to reestablish royal control in the South failed to eliminate rebel activity in South Carolina. Charles Lord Cornwallis, commander of the last British mobile force in America, invaded North Carolina and then Virginia, to eliminate support for the rebels further south.

Cornwallis's operations in Virginia during the summer of 1781 put his 10,000‐man army within range of Franco‐American forces based in southern New England and New York. Washington saw the opportunity Cornwallis had presented, and Rochambeau and de Grasse agreed to attempt a joint operation. Leaving half the American army to pin Sir Henry Clinton's forces at New York City, Washington with 2,300 Continentals and Rochambeau with 4,000 Frenchmen began moving south on 20 August. They reached Williamsburg on the 26th, having traveled down Chesapeake Bay by ship. There they joined 3,400 Continentals and 3,200 Virginia state and militia troops already operating against Cornwallis, who had withdrawn to Yorktown, on the York River, to await resupply.

The plan's key element was de Grasse's fleet, which arrived on 26 August from the West Indies, established control of the coastal waters inside the Capes of Virginia, and contributed 4,800 more men to the besieging force. Ten days later, de Grasse fought a strategically decisive engagement with a British squadron sent by Clinton to evacuate Cornwallis's force. The British failure to penetrate past de Grasse, plus Cornwallis's inertia, allowed Washington and Rochambeau to spring their trap.

The allies closed in on Yorktown on 28 September, and on 6 October began formal siege operations, which would have been impossible without French heavy artillery. By 14 October, the cannonade had weakened British positions sufficiently to allow the allies to capture key outposts: 400 American light infantry, led by Alexander Hamilton, took the smaller Redoubt No. 10 sooner and with fewer casualties than the French at Redoubt No. 9. Cornwallis and 8,000 men surrendered on 17 October.

Yorktown's most decisive effect was on political opinion in Britain. The British still had substantial forces in North America, but all were tied down defending coastal enclaves; Cornwallis's army was the last force surplus to garrison requirements they had been able to scrape together. Britain could have continued the war, but its political leaders had lost the will to fight.

[See also Revolutionary War: Military and Diplomatic Course.]

Bibliography

• Henry P. Johnston, The Yorktown Campaign and the Surrender of Cornwallis, 1781, 1881; repr. 1979.
• Douglas S. Freeman, George Washington: Victory with the Help of France, 1955.
• William B. Willcox, Portrait of a General: Sir Henry Clinton in the War of Independence, 1964