Siege of Yorktown

The 1781 siege in Virginia in which American and French forces trapped British troops under Charles Cornwallis, leading to their surrender and effectively ending major fighting in the American Revolutionary War.

Battle of the Chesapeake: The 1781 naval battle in which a French fleet prevented the British from relieving Cornwallis at Yorktown. French control of the bay cut Cornwallis off from evacuation and reinforcements.
Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War: The Revolutionary War campaigns fought across the southern colonies from 1778 to 1781. Cornwallis’s Virginia campaign emerged from Britain’s effort to regain control in the South.
George Washington: The commander in chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He led the allied march south and directed the siege’s land operations.
Treaty of Paris (1783): The treaty that ended the American Revolutionary War and recognized United States independence. The surrender helped persuade Britain to negotiate the settlement signed two years later.
Yorktown siege lines: The parallel trenches and artillery positions built by allied forces around British defenses at Yorktown. Their advance brought allied guns close enough to make British positions untenable.
Siege of Charleston: The 1780 British capture of Charleston, South Carolina, after a prolonged siege. Its fall began the British southern campaign that eventually brought Cornwallis to Virginia.
Charles Cornwallis: A British general who commanded the army that surrendered at Yorktown in 1781. His decision to hold Yorktown left his army exposed to allied land and sea forces.
Siege of Gibraltar: The 1779–1783 Franco-Spanish siege of Gibraltar, which continued after Yorktown. It shows that Yorktown ended major fighting in America, not the wider war between Britain and its European rivals.
Siege artillery: Heavy guns used to breach fortifications and suppress defenders during a siege. French artillery battered the British redoubts that protected Cornwallis’s perimeter.
Battle of Guilford Court House: A costly British victory in North Carolina on March 15, 1781, against Nathanael Greene’s army. After the battle, Cornwallis moved his army toward Virginia rather than secure North Carolina.

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