On this day in 1781, the British army under Cornwallis surrendered to the Franco-American force at Yorktown in Virginia. This action effectively ended the thirteen colonies’ war for independence, although another two years would pass before the Treaty of Paris formally ended it.
The victory at Yorktown came nearly four years to the day after the British surrender at Saratoga, a campaign won solely by American arms. It was that success which led to the French commitment to aid the Americans, which eventually placed the French fleet at the Virginia Capes to intercept the Royal Navy, and the French engineers and artillery ashore to help encircle and besiege the British (who of course deposited themselves there after being squeezed out of the South by Greene’s brilliant campaign).
