General Sir Charles Cornwallis Surrenders His Army to George Washington: October 19, 1781
This text comes from our book, The American Venture.
Though the French alliance raised hopes of victory in America, it had at first little effect on the course of the war. Indeed, despite the alliance, it appeared the revolution was heading to certain defeat.
In November 1778, British forces under Colonel Sir Archibald Campbell moved against Savannah, Georgia, and in December drove out its American defenders. Campbell then pushed further into the interior, conquered the state capital, Augusta, in the spring of 1779, and reinstated the royal governor there. Even with French help, the Americans could not retake Savannah. An American and French sea-and-land assault on the city in October 1779 was a failure. Savannah remained in British hands.
American forces in Charleston, South Carolina held out longer against an army composed of loyalists and Cherokee Indians. But in April 1780, a British fleet passed the guns of Fort Moultrie, which guarded Charleston Bay, while British troops under the command of Sir Charles Cornwallis invested the city from the south. Caught between the fleet and the army, the American general, Benjamin Lincoln, surrendered the city. From Charleston, Cornwallis moved west and by July had restored all of South Carolina to royal control. At Camden, South Carolina, Cornwallis utterly defeated American troops under General Horatio Gates.
From South Carolina, Cornwallis determined to invade North Carolina—but here he met his first check. As Cornwallis advanced on Charlotte, North Carolina, his support force of loyalists under Major Patrick Ferguson turned west to harry the patriot regions (those loyal to the revolutionary government) of western North Carolina. On October 7, 1780, settlers of that mountainous region, along with men of the new Tennessee settlements to the west, led by John Shelby and “Nolichucky” Jack Sevier, engaged Ferguson in battle at King’s Mountain, on the border of South and North Carolina. In the one-hour battle, Ferguson was killed and his troops routed. Without the loyalists’ support, Cornwallis withdrew again into South Carolina.
From Defeat to Victory
The beginning of 1781 seemed to promise little change to rebel fortunes. Since December, Benedict Arnold (who had betrayed the patriot cause) had been leading 1,700 loyalist volunteer troops on raids in Virginia. In January, he captured Virginia’s capital, Richmond, forcing Governor Thomas Jefferson to flee the city. Hoping to take advantage of Arnold’s successes, Cornwallis led a force of 1,400 into Virginia, joining forces with Arnold at Petersburg.
But before Cornwallis could leave North Carolina, he had to contend with a different kind of American commander—Nathaniel Greene. Appointed by Washington to replace Gates, Greene was the sort of general the southern army needed. Under his command, the southern army lost battle after battle—but it inflicted more losses on the British than it suffered itself. After Cornwallis retreated to Wilmington, North Carolina, Greene marched into South Carolina, forcing British and loyalist forces to withdraw into Charleston. Most of South Carolina once again belonged to the patriots.
In June, Cornwallis began moving his forces toward Virginia’s old capital, Williamsburg. In July, General George Clinton, who had replaced Howe in New York in 1778, ordered him to establish a naval base in Virginia, and Cornwallis chose Yorktown—a town set on a long peninsula formed by the James River to the south, and the York River to the north. On August 2, 1781, Cornwallis entered Yorktown, where he hoped a large force under Clinton would soon join him. But Clinton never arrived. Instead, he sent Cornwallis only a small portion of the British forces in New York.
Meanwhile, Washington had received good news. Louis XVI had promised to send a major portion of his army to America, along with a fleet of 20 ships under Rear Admiral François Joseph Paul, Comte de Grasse. De Grasse would sail to the West Indies, where four more ships and 3,000 soldiers awaited him. The French alliance, it seemed, would finally pay off.
Washington and his French allies debated where they should strike—New York or Yorktown? It was de Grasse who finally decided on Yorktown. In early September, Washington and the French General Rochambeau, by land, and De Grasse, by sea, moved on Cornwallis’ position. On September 28, the allies began their siege of Yorktown. Blocked seaward by de Grasse’s fleet, Cornwallis’ 8,000 men could not escape by ship. Nor could they retreat by land, blocked as they were by Rochambeau’s 8,000 French troops, Washington’s 5,645 Continentals, and 3,200 Virginia militia. Seeing he would get no relief from Clinton, Cornwallis surrendered his army to Washington on October 19, 1781.
