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Show Yorktown In October 1781 In 1781, the commander of the largest British army on American soil, Lord Cornwal-lis, Cornwal-lis, after marching through the Carolinas and into Virginia from Charleston, took refuge in, and fortified, Yorktown, Virginia. He hoped to receive reinforcements from the sea. THIS WAS the last major British bid to win a victory against American colonists, who had begun fighting for their freedom in the mid-seventies. mid-seventies. Earlier campaigns in the north had failed. George Washington moved to attack Cornwallis at York-town York-town after a French fleet blockaded the Chesapeake Bay. Washington also had with him French troops, France then being at war with England. Eng-land. WHEN Washington's troops broke through York-town's York-town's outer defenses, Corn- wallis, realizing the hopeless position, surrendered. The day was October 19-202 years ago. This was the end of the British Brit-ish military effort in the American Amer-ican revolution. After Cornwallis' Corn-wallis' defeat, London wouldn't undertake another costly, long-distance military effort. A peace treaty was finally fin-ally signed , establishing American Amer-ican independence, 18 months later. NEWS OF the great victory at Yorktown on the 19th didn't reach Philadelphia, the capital, capit-al, until three in the morning on the 22nd when an express rider arrived with Washington's tentative dispatch. There was a great celebra-tion--and the news reverberated reverber-ated throughout the world like a thunderclap, and almost certainly cer-tainly helped bring about the French Revolution. |