For America250, which French admiral’s 1781 victory helped trap Cornwallis at Yorktown?

For America250, the Comte de Grasse’s 1781 victory helped trap Cornwallis at Yorktown.

François Joseph Paul de Grasse commanded the French fleet at the Battle of the Chesapeake, also called the Battle of the Virginia Capes, on September 5, 1781. His fleet fought a British force led by Rear Admiral Thomas Graves and prevented the British from controlling the Chesapeake Bay.

That naval result was strategically decisive. De Grasse’s ships maintained the sea blockade while American and French troops surrounded Cornwallis’s army on land at Yorktown. Without effective British reinforcement or evacuation by sea, Cornwallis capitulated on October 19.

De Grasse was not the French army commander at Yorktown; that role belonged to Rochambeau. Nor was the Chesapeake battle itself the final land siege. It was a fleet action offshore whose consequences made the allied siege possible. The later surrender led to peace negotiations and ultimately the Treaty of Paris in 1783.