The siege of Yorktown, also known as the Battle of Yorktown and the surrender at Yorktown, began September 28, 1781, and ended on October 19, 1781, at exactly 10:30 am in Yorktown, Virginia. It was a decisive victory by a combined force of the American Continental Army troops led by General George Washington with support from Marquis de Lafayette and French Army troops led by Comte de Rochambeau and a French naval force commanded by Comte de Grasse over the British Army commanded by British Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis.
Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, an 1820 portrait by John Trumbull depicting the British surrendering to Benjamin Lincoln flanked by French (left) and Continental Army troops
Siège de Yorktown by Auguste Couder, c. 1836. Rochambeau (center L), Washington (center R), Marquis de La Fayette (behind Washington, R), Marquis de Saint Simon (behind Washington, L), Duke of Lauzun (L, mounted) and Comte de Ménonville (R of Washington).
Washington firing the first gun
Storming of Redoubt No. 10
Benjamin Lincoln was an American army officer. He served as a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Lincoln was involved in three major surrenders during the war: his participation in the Battles of Saratoga contributed to John Burgoyne's surrender of a British army, he oversaw the largest American surrender of the war at the 1780 siege of Charleston, and, as George Washington's second in command, he formally accepted the British surrender at Yorktown.
1784 portrait by Charles Wilson Peale
Continental Congress Broadside, 1777 mentions Gen. Lincoln's letter.
The Hon. B. Lincoln, Esq. Major General, Continental Army.
Tomb of Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, Hingham Cemetery, Hingham, Massachusetts
