Benjamin Lincoln accepted the British surrender at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, on behalf of George Washington.
Lincoln was Washington’s second-in-command in the Continental Army and had served as a major general since 1777. During the Yorktown surrender ceremony, he received the British sword from General Charles O’Hara, who represented Lord Cornwallis. Cornwallis himself did not attend the ceremony.
The surrender followed a combined American and French operation in Virginia. Washington commanded the Continental Army, while the French army under the Comte de Rochambeau supported the siege. French naval control of the Chesapeake Bay prevented British forces from relieving Yorktown.
Yorktown was not the final military engagement of the war, but it was the decisive British defeat that led to peace negotiations. The Treaty of Paris, signed in 1783, formally recognized American independence.