Charles Cornwallis commanded the British forces that surrendered at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781.
The siege lasted from September 28 to October 19, 1781, in Virginia. Cornwallis had established his army at Yorktown, where the position could theoretically be supplied by sea. A Franco-American army led by George Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau surrounded the town while French naval forces helped block British relief.
The allied army captured key defensive positions and moved its artillery close enough to bombard the British lines. Cornwallis requested surrender terms on October 17. The formal surrender took place two days later, although Cornwallis said illness prevented him from attending the ceremony; Brigadier General Charles O’Hara represented him.
Yorktown was the final major land engagement of the American Revolutionary War, not the final military action of the conflict. Fighting continued elsewhere, especially at sea, until peace negotiations produced the Treaty of Paris in 1783. The surrender nevertheless made American independence the practical outcome of the war.