Charles Cornwallis commanded the British army that surrendered at Yorktown on October 19, 1781.
Cornwallis’s force was trapped on the Yorktown peninsula in Virginia after American and French troops surrounded the town by land. George Washington commanded the combined American army, while the Comte de Rochambeau led the French army units cooperating with him. French naval victory in the Battle of the Chesapeake prevented a reliable British evacuation or resupply.
The siege began in late September 1781. Allied artillery gradually reduced the British defenses, and the capture of two key redoubts helped tighten the encirclement. Cornwallis requested terms after recognizing that his position could not be sustained.
The Yorktown surrender did not legally end the war, which continued elsewhere for nearly two years. It did, however, made continued British prosecution of the conflict politically difficult and led to peace negotiations culminating in the Treaty of Paris in 1783.