Yorktown campaign

Yorktown campaign
Part of the Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War
Date June – October 1781 Location Atlantic Seaboard Result Franco-American victory
Belligerents
United States  France	Great Britain Hesse-Cassel[a] Ansbach-Bayreuth
Commanders and leaders
George Washington Marquis de Lafayette Anthony Wayne Comté de Rochambeau Comté de Grasse Charles Destouches Comté de Barras Comté de Deux-Ponts	Sir Henry Clinton Lord Cornwallis  Benedict Arnold  William Phillips † Mariot Arbuthnot Sir Thomas Graves Thomas Symonds  Matthias von Fuchs  August von Salzburg  Johann von Seybothen
Strength
American land forces: 5,500, sixty cannon French land forces: 9,500, ninety cannon French navy: 36 ships of the line French naval personnel: 20–22,000[1]	Cornwallis land forces: 7,000 Clinton land forces: 7,000[2] New York fleet: 25 ships of the line[2] Yorktown fleet: 63 small ships[3]
Force strengths are maximums marshalled during and shortly after the siege of Yorktown.

The Yorktown campaign, also known as the Virginia campaign, was a series of military maneuvers and battles during the American Revolutionary War that culminated in the siege of Yorktown in October 1781. The result of the campaign was the surrender of the British Army force of General Charles Earl Cornwallis, an event that led directly to the beginning of serious peace negotiations and the eventual end of the war. The campaign was marked by disagreements, indecision, and miscommunication on the part of British leaders, and by a remarkable set of cooperative decisions, at times in violation of orders, by the French and Americans.

The campaign involved land and naval forces of Great Britain and France, and land forces of the United States. British forces were sent to Virginia between January and April 1781 and joined with Cornwallis's army in May, which came north from an extended campaign through the southern states. These forces were first opposed weakly by Virginia militia, but General George Washington sent first Marquis de Lafayette and then "Mad" Anthony Wayne with Continental Army troops to oppose the raiding and economic havoc the British were wreaking. The combined American forces, however, were insufficient in number to oppose the combined British forces, and it was only after a series of controversially confusing orders by General Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander-in-chief, that Cornwallis moved to Yorktown in July and built a defensive position that was strong against the land forces he then faced, but was vulnerable to naval blockade and siege.

British naval forces in North America and the West Indies were weaker than the combined fleets of France and Spain, and, after some critical decisions and tactical missteps by British naval commanders, the French fleet of Paul de Grasse gained control over Chesapeake Bay, blockading Cornwallis from naval support and delivering additional land forces to blockade him on land. The Royal Navy attempted to dispute this control, but Admiral Thomas Graves was defeated in the key Battle of the Chesapeake on September 5. American and French armies that had massed outside New York City began moving south in late August, and arrived near Yorktown in mid-September. Deceptions about their movement successfully delayed attempts by Clinton to send more troops to Cornwallis.

The siege of Yorktown began on September 28, 1781. In a step that probably shortened the siege, Cornwallis decided to abandon parts of his outer defenses, and the besiegers successfully stormed two of his redoubts. When it became clear that his position was untenable, Cornwallis opened negotiations on October 17 and surrendered two days later. When the news reached London, the government of Lord North fell, and the following Rockingham ministry entered into peace negotiations. These culminated in the Treaty of Paris in 1783, in which King George III recognized the independent United States of America. Clinton and Cornwallis engaged in a public war of words defending their roles in the campaign, and British naval command also discussed the navy's shortcomings that led to the defeat.

If all these apparently fortuitous occurrences were the result of previous arrangement and premeditation, they display a generalship to which military annals have furnished no parallel.

— Historian Paul Allen^[4]

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