Ten Facts About the Siege of Yorktown, From Hot Shot to the Treaty of Paris

In the autumn of 1781, American and French forces trapped Lord Cornwallis's British army at Yorktown, Virginia. The National Park Service's quiz on the siege, turned here into ten facts.

Reenactors in the uniforms of British troops. NPS.

Who fought

• The British commander-in-chief in North America was General Henry Clinton, not Cornwallis. Clinton replaced William Howe, who resigned in February 1778; after taking Charleston, South Carolina, in 1780 — and nearly the whole American southern army with it — Clinton went back to New York and left Cornwallis in charge in the South.
• Both sides had foreign regiments. The Ansbach-Bayreuth Regiment was among the 30,000 German soldiers Britain hired; the Royal Welch Fusiliers were a seasoned British regiment. The Royal Deux-Ponts and Gâtinais regiments were French, fighting with the Americans.

Alexander Hamilton, by Charles Willson Peale. Independence National Historical Park.

• Alexander Hamilton was a lieutenant colonel. He had been promoted in 1777 and made George Washington's secretary and aide-de-camp.

The guns

Reenactors fire a cannon at Yorktown in the manner of Lamb's Artillery. NPS.

• About 1,700 rounds a day — cannonballs and bombs — were fired on average by the allies into the British lines. Their accuracy and destructive force helped convince Cornwallis to give up.
• Hot shot was a cannonball heated red-hot before firing, used to set enemy ships ablaze.
• The British surrendered 244 artillery pieces, mostly light field guns that had done little against the allies' earthworks. Washington's forces had only about 131, but more heavy siege guns and skilled crews such as Colonel John Lamb's artillery.

A cannon engraved as surrendered at Yorktown, October 1781. NPS.

The end

• October 19, 1781: in the afternoon the Yorktown garrison marched to Surrender Field and laid down its arms; an hour later the garrison across the river at Gloucester Point did the same. It was a third of all British forces in North America.

The Yorktown Victory Monument above the York River. NPS.

• 26,000 British troops were still in North America after Yorktown — but the will to fight on was gone. The war was long and expensive, Britain was also fighting in India, Gibraltar, the West Indies and Ireland, and in March 1782 Parliament resolved not to continue the war against the United States.
• September 3, 1783: the Treaty of Paris ended the war and recognized American independence. The British left their last stronghold, New York City, on November 25, 1783.

A family connection

George Washington, by Alonzo Pease after Gilbert Stuart. James A. Garfield National Historic Site, NPS.

Nicolas Martiau (1591–1657), a Frenchman who settled in Virginia and is buried in Yorktown, was an ancestor of both George Washington and General Thomas Nelson Jr., who fought at the siege.

Sources

Based on "Siege of Yorktown Trivia," Colonial National Historical Park, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The quiz's paintings by Keith Rocco and Gil Cohen are not reproduced.