Which French admiral commanded the fleet that blocked British relief during the Yorktown campaign in the America250 story?

François Joseph Paul de Grasse commanded the French fleet that blocked British relief during the Yorktown campaign in the America250 story.

Admiral de Grasse brought a French fleet from the West Indies to the Chesapeake Bay in late August 1781. His arrival helped prevent the British from supplying or evacuating Lord Cornwallis’s army at Yorktown. On September 5, 1781, his fleet fought the Battle of the Chesapeake against a British force led by Thomas Graves.

The French victory did not destroy the entire British fleet, but it denied the Royal Navy control of the bay at the crucial moment. That naval situation allowed Washington and Rochambeau’s allied army to maintain the siege and receive heavy artillery and supplies.

De Grasse’s role is sometimes overshadowed by Washington, Rochambeau, and Cornwallis because the final surrender occurred on land. Yorktown was nevertheless a combined land-and-sea operation, and French naval control was essential to its success.