When did the British army surrender at Yorktown during the American Revolution?

The British army surrendered at Yorktown on October 19, 1781.

The surrender followed a siege in Virginia led by George Washington’s Continental Army and French forces commanded by the Comte de Rochambeau. French naval forces under the Comte de Grasse blocked British relief by sea, while allied troops surrounded the British position on land.

British commander Charles Cornwallis requested capitulation terms on October 17. The formal surrender ceremony took place two days later, although Cornwallis did not attend and sent Brigadier General Charles O’Hara in his place. More than 7,000 British and German troops became prisoners.

Yorktown was the final major land engagement of the Revolutionary War, but it was not the formal legal end of the conflict. Fighting and military occupation continued elsewhere until peace negotiations produced the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Yorktown therefore marked the decisive military turning point rather than the treaty date.