Charles Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown in Virginia in 1781.
The Siege of Yorktown lasted from September 28 to October 19, 1781. American and French forces surrounded Cornwallis’s British army on land, while a French naval victory in the Chesapeake helped prevent British reinforcement or escape by sea.
Washington commanded the Continental Army, working with French troops led by the Comte de Rochambeau. The allied forces captured key British outer defenses and brought artillery close enough to make Cornwallis’s position untenable. Cornwallis asked for capitulation terms on October 17.
The surrender ceremony took place on October 19. Cornwallis did not attend, claiming illness, so Charles O’Hara represented him and offered the sword to American Major General Benjamin Lincoln. Yorktown was the final major land engagement of the American Revolutionary War, although fighting at sea continued afterward.