MARCH ON YORKTOWN BEGINS

March on Yorktown begins

One year later, on September 28th, 1781, a combined American and French army moved out from around Williamsburg and advanced toward British positions at Yorktown, Virginia. Under Washington and the French commander Rochambeau, thousands of allied soldiers marched to encircle General Charles Cornwallis, whose army had taken up a defensive position along the York River. The march followed careful coordination with a French fleet that had already driven off British ships at the Battle of the Chesapeake, sealing Cornwallis off from easy reinforcement or evacuation by sea. As the Franco-American column moved closer, they began laying out siege lines, emplacing artillery, and tightening the ring around Yorktown’s outer works. For the soldiers, many of whom had endured years of hard campaigning, the movement felt like the beginning of an endgame rather than just another maneuver. Within weeks, the siege would culminate in Cornwallis’s surrender and a decisive blow to British hopes of crushing the rebellion by force.