The British army surrendered at Yorktown on October 19, 1781.
The surrender followed a siege by American and French forces commanded by George Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau. British commander Charles Cornwallis was trapped on the Yorktown Peninsula in Virginia, while French naval forces helped prevent effective evacuation by sea.
American and French troops captured key positions, including Redoubts 9 and 10, and completed a decisive assault on the night of October 14. Cornwallis’s position became untenable, leading to negotiations and the formal surrender several days later.
Yorktown did not legally end the war; fighting and diplomacy continued until the Treaty of Paris in 1783. However, the defeat caused the British government to lose political support for continuing major offensive operations in North America, making Yorktown the conflict’s decisive turning point.