Who was the British commander who surrendered at Yorktown?

Charles Cornwallis was the British commander who surrendered at Yorktown. His capitulation on October 19, 1781, followed a three-week siege by American and French forces and became the decisive turning point of the Revolutionary War.

Cornwallis had moved his army into Yorktown, Virginia, after British leaders ordered him to establish a defensible deep-water port. The position became dangerously isolated when the French fleet defeated or blocked British naval support in the Chesapeake Bay. George Washington’s Continental Army and the French army under the Comte de Rochambeau then surrounded Yorktown and opened a concentrated artillery bombardment.

Cornwallis requested surrender terms on October 17. He did not attend the formal ceremony, claiming illness, so Brigadier General Charles O’Hara represented him and offered the sword. Washington directed O’Hara to Major General Benjamin Lincoln, who accepted it. This detail sometimes causes confusion: Cornwallis was the commander who surrendered the army, while O’Hara performed the ceremony in his absence.