Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis
Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, KG, PC was a British Army officer, Whig politician and colonial administrator. In the United States and the United Kingdom, he is best known as one of the leading British general officers in the American War of Independence. His surrender in 1781 to a combined American and French force at the siege of Yorktown ended significant hostilities in North America. Cornwallis later served as a civil and military governor in Ireland, where he helped bring about the Act of Union; and in India, where he helped enact the Cornwallis Code and the Permanent Settlement.
Portrait by Thomas Gainsborough
Jemima, Countess Cornwallis
Portrait of Sir Henry Clinton by John Smart, c. 1777
Surrender of Lord Cornwallis by John Trumbull
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a military conflict that was part of the broader American Revolution, where American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and commanded by George Washington defeated the British Army.
Clockwise from top left: Surrender of Lord Cornwallis after the Siege of Yorktown, Battle of Trenton, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill, Battle of Long Island, and the Battle of Guilford Court House
The Committee of Five, who were charged with drafting the Declaration of Independence, including (from left to right): John Adams (chair), Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, Thomas Jefferson (the Declaration's principal author), and Benjamin Franklin
The British repulse a Continental Army attack at the Battle of Quebec in December 1775
Sergeant William Jasper of the 2nd South Carolina Regiment raises the fort's flag at the Battle of Sullivan's Island in Charleston, South Carolina in June 1776