The British army surrendered at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, a turning point in the Revolution remembered by America250.
The surrender followed a Franco-American siege in Virginia led by George Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau. French naval forces under the Comte de Grasse blocked British relief by sea, while allied troops surrounded the British army commanded by Charles Cornwallis.
After American and French forces captured key outer defenses on October 14, Cornwallis’s position became untenable. Negotiations followed, and the surrender ceremony took place on October 19. More than 7,000 British soldiers were captured.
Yorktown was the final major land engagement of the Revolutionary War, but fighting at sea continued afterward. The war formally ended when Britain and the United States signed the Treaty of Paris in 1783.