The Siege of Yorktown ended with General Charles Cornwallis’s surrender to George Washington in 1781.
American and French forces surrounded Yorktown, Virginia, beginning in September 1781. Washington commanded the Continental Army, while the French army supported the operation on land. A French fleet’s victory at the Battle of the Chesapeake prevented a British naval rescue and helped trap Cornwallis’s army.
After weeks of bombardment and diminishing supplies, Cornwallis surrendered on October 19, 1781. The British defeat did not legally end the war immediately, but it weakened political support in Britain for continuing the conflict. The Treaty of Paris, signed in 1783, formally recognized American independence.
Yorktown is sometimes called the last major battle of the Revolutionary War, though fighting and negotiations continued afterward. Its outcome helped secure the independence later celebrated through the Declaration’s 250th anniversary.