Battle of Yorktown

General George Washington’s resounding victory and the surrender of Lord Cornwallis’s British army on 19th October 1781; the end for Britain in the American Colonies

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Battle: Yorktown

War: American Revolutionary War

Dates of the Battle of Yorktown: 28^th September to 19^th October 1781

Place of the Battle of Yorktown: Virginia in the United States of America

Combatants at the Battle of Yorktown: Americans and French against the British and their German mercenaries

Generals at the Battle of Yorktown: General Washington commanded the American army. Lieutenant-General de Rochambeau commanded the French troops. Major-General Lord Cornwallis commanded the British and German troops.

Size of the armies at the Battle of Yorktown: 8,800 American troops, 7,800 French troops and 6,000 British and German troops.

Uniforms, arms and equipment at the Battle of Yorktown: 

The British wore red coats, with bearskin caps for the grenadiers, tricorne hats for the battalion companies and caps for the light infantry. The Highland Scots troops wore the kilt and feather bonnet.

The two regiments of light dragoons serving in America, the 16^th and 17^th, wore red coats and leather helmets in England, but there is clear evidence that they took to wearing green in America.

The Hessian infantry wore blue coats and retained the Prussian style grenadier mitre cap with brass front plate.

The Americans dressed as best they could. Increasingly as the war progressed infantry regiments of the Continental Army took to wearing mostly blue or brown uniform coats.  The American militia continued in rough clothing.

Both sides were armed with muskets. The British and German infantry carried bayonets, which were in short supply among the American troops.  Steuben in the winter of 1777/8 in Valley Forge insisted that the American Continental Regiments be issued with a standard pattern musket and bayonet, the bayonet being essential to enable the Americans to fight hand-to-hand with the British foot on an equal footing.

Many American soldiers from backwoods areas carried rifles, weapons of considerably greater accuracy than the ordinary musket and which their owners used with proficiency.

Both sides were supported by artillery.

The French royal regiments of foot wore white coats.

Winner of the Battle of Yorktown: The Americans and French.

British Regiments at the Battle of Yorktown: 

Troop of 17^th Light Dragoons (incorporated in Tarleton’s Legion), Royal Artillery, A composite battalion of Foot Guards (comprising 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd Foot Guards), 17^th Foot, 23^rd Royal Welch Fusiliers, 33^rd Foot, 43^rd Foot, 71^st Fraser’s Highlanders (disbanded at the end of the war), 76^th Foot (disbanded at the end of the war) and 80^th Foot (disbanded at the end of the war), Tarleton’s Legion, Simcoe’s Legion and  the North Carolina Loyalists.

German Regiments in British pay at the Battle of Yorktown:
Regiment of de Voit (Anspach), Regiment of de Seybothen (Anspach), Regiment of Prince Hereditary (Hesse), Regiment of von Bose (Hesse).

French Regiments at the Battle of Yorktown:
Artillery, Lauzun’s Legion, Bourbonnois Regiment of Foot, Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment of Foot, Soissonois Regiment of Foot and the Agenois Regiment of Foot.

Americans Regiments at the Battle of Yorktown:
4^th Dragoons (Moylan), Armand’s Horse, Lafayette’s Light Infantry, Muhlenburg’s Brigade, Hazen’s Canadian Regiment, 1^st New York Regiment, 2^nd New York Regiment, 1^st New Jersey Regiment, 2^nd  New Jersey Regiment, Rhode Island Regiment, 1^st Pennsylvania Regiment, 2^nd Pennsylvania Regiment, Virginia Regiment, 3^rd Maryland Regiment, 4^th Maryland Regiment, three brigades of Virginia Militia and Sappers and Miners.

Account of the Battle of Yorktown:
During the campaigning in 1781, Cornwallis progressively lost his grip on the Carolinas.  The years of fighting in America, with no proper supply of recruits to replace British losses, and the intervention of Spain and France in the war, leading to the requirement for British troops in the West Indies and the Mediterranean, left the British much weakened in America.

Cornwallis marched his army into Virginia and seized Yorktown and Gloucester, towns on each side of the York River.

With the arrival of the French fleet of Admiral De Grasse, General Washington was able to march south from New York with the joint American and French army to attack Cornwallis.

Expecting Major-General Clinton to sail from New York with a British relieving force, Cornwallis decided to remain in Yorktown, rather than march south to the Carolinas, or attempt to reach New York.

The Americans and French arrived before Yorktown on 28^th September 1781, forming a semi-circle around the British entrenchments and putting the British and German troops under siege.

Cornwallis’s first move was the inexplicable one of abandoning a line of four redoubts that dominated the British positions. The Americans immediately occupied the empty redoubts.

Washington began formal siege operations on the eastern side of Yorktown on 30^th September, and on 9^th October were sufficiently close to open an artillery bombardment.

On 14^th October 1781, the Americans and French stormed two redoubts in front of their trenches and Cornwallis’s position in Yorktown became untenable.

The British carried out a sortie on the 16^th October, in which several guns in the two redoubts held by the Americans were spiked. On the same day, Cornwallis attempted to pass the Guards, the 23rd Regiment and the Light Infantry across the York River to Gloucester, but was thwarted by a storm.

With no sign of Clinton’s relief, and with inadequate supplies of artillery ammunition and food, on 19^th October 1781, Cornwallis’s army marched out of Yorktown and surrendered to George Washington.

Casualties at the Battle of Yorktown:
6,000 British troops surrendered to the Americans and French with 10 stands of German and British colours, guns, small arms, ammunition and equipment.

The casualties during the siege were 500 British, 80 Americans and 200 French killed and wounded.

Follow-up to the Battle of Yorktown:
The capitulation of Clinton’s army at Yorktown ended the major battles of the American Revolutionary War, although local fighting continued in areas where there were strong loyalist communities.  General Leslie’s force in Charleston and the British left in New York were evacuated by ship.  The war was formally ended by the Treaty of Paris, signed in 1783, that acknowledged the independence of the American states.

Anecdotes and traditions from the Battle of Yorktown:

• The British bands are reputed to have played “The world turned upside down” as the troops marched out to surrender.
• After the surrender the American and French officers entertained the British officers to dinner, other than Tarleton with whom the Americans refused to sit at table, due to the atrocities committed by his troops in North and South Carolina.

References for the Battle of Yorktown:

History of the British Army by Sir John Fortescue

The War of the Revolution by Christopher Ward

The American Revolution by Brendan Morrissey

The previous battle of the American Revolutionary War is the Battle of Guildford Courthouse

The next battle in the American Revolutionary War is the Siege of Gibraltar

To the American Revolutionary War index