British forces surrendered at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, after the decisive Siege of Yorktown.
The American and French armies, commanded by George Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau, trapped Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis’s British army on the Virginia peninsula. French naval forces helped prevent British relief by controlling the Chesapeake Bay during the campaign.
Cornwallis’s surrender did not legally end the war, but it destroyed Britain’s ability to wage a large-scale offensive in the colonies. Fighting and negotiations continued for nearly two more years, ending with the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
October 19 is sometimes confused with October 17, when Cornwallis’s representatives requested terms for surrender. The formal surrender ceremony occurred two days later. Yorktown became a powerful symbol of cooperation between the American revolutionaries and their French allies, whose military and financial assistance was crucial to the campaign.