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Sugar Act cut the duty on foreign molasses from 6 to 3 pence per gallon, retained a high duty on foreign refined sugar, and prohibited the importation of all foreign rum

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The Stamp Act of 1765 was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British Parliament. The act, which imposed a tax on all paper documents in the colonies, came at a time when the British Empire was deep in debt

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required the colonies to house British soldiers in barracks provided by the colonies. If the barracks were too small to house all the soldiers, then localities were to accommodate the soldiers in local inns, livery stables, ale houses, victualling houses and the houses of sellers of wine. "Should there still be soldiers without accommodation after all such publick houses were filled," the act read, "

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The Townshend Acts, named after Charles Townshend, British chancellor of the Exchequer, imposed duties on British china, glass, lead, paint, paper and tea imported to the colonies.

Benjamin Franklin had informed the British Parliament that the colonies intended to start manufacturing their own goods rather than paying duties on imports.

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The Boston Massacre was a deadly riot that occurred on March 5, 1770, on King Street in Boston. It began as a street brawl between American colonists and a lone British soldier, but quickly escalated to a chaotic, bloody slaughter. The conflict energized anti-British sentiment

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The Boston Tea Party was a political protest that occurred on December 16, 1773, at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts. American colonists, frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” dumped 342 chests of tea, imported by the British East India Company

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=. First Continent Congress  1774 to 1789

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=. First Continent Congress  1774 to 1789

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the United States, from 1774 to 1789. The First Continental Congress, comprised of delegates from the colonies, met in 1774 in reaction to the Intolerable Acts, a series of measures imposed by the British government after the colonies resisted new taxes. In 1775, the Second Continental Congress convened after the Revolutionary War had already begun. In 1776, it took the momentous step of declaring America’s independence from Britain

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 Battle of Lexington and Concord, April 18, 1775,

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 Battle of Lexington and Concord, April 18, 1775,

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On the night of April 18, 1775, hundreds of British troops marched from Boston to nearby Concord in order to seize an arms cache. Paul Revere and other riders sounded the alarm, and colonial militiamen began mobilizing to intercept the Redcoat column. A confrontation on the Lexington town green started off the fighting, and soon the British were hastily retreating under intense fire.

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Lead-Up to the Battles of Lexington and Concord

Starting in 1764, Great Britain enacted a series of measures aimed at raising revenue from its 13 American colonies. Many of those measures, including the Sugar Act, Stamp Act and Townshend Acts, generated fierce resentment among the colonists, who protested against "taxation without representation." Boston, the site of the 1770 Boston Massacre and the 1773 Boston Tea Party, was one of the main points of resistance. King George III of Britain ramped up the military presence there, and in June 1774 he shut down the city's harbor until colonists paid for tea dumped overboard the previous year. Soon after, the British Parliament declared that Massachusetts was in open rebellion.
Did you know? Paul Revere never shouted the legendary phrase later attributed to him ("The British are coming!") as he passed from town to town during his midnight ride on April 18, 1775. The operation was meant to be conducted as discreetly as possible since scores of British troops were hiding out in the Massachusetts countryside. Furthermore, colonial Americans at that time still considered themselves British.
On April 18, 1775, Joseph Warren, a physician and member of the Sons of Liberty, learned from a source inside the British high command that Redcoat troops would march that night on Concord. Warren dispatched two couriers, silversmith Paul Revere and tanner William Dawes, to alert residents of the news.

They went by separate routes in case one of them was captured. Revere crossed the Charles River by boat to get to Charlestown, where fellow patriots were waiting for a signal about the movement of British troops. The patriots had been instructed to look at the steeple of Boston's Old North Church, which was visible to them because it was the highest point in the city.

If there was one lantern hanging in the steeple, the British were arriving by land. If there were two, the British were coming by sea. Two lanterns were set out, and the covert signal was memorialized in American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "Paul Revere's Ride," in which he wrote:

As Revere carried out his mission in Charlestown, Dawes left Boston and traveled along the Boston Neck peninsula. The two met up in Lexington, a few miles east of Concord, where revolutionary leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock had temporarily holed up. Having persuaded those two to flee, a weary Revere and Dawes then set out again. On the road, they met a third rider, Samuel Prescott, who alone made it all the way to Concord. Revere was captured by a British patrol, while Dawes was thrown from his horse and forced to proceed back to Lexington on foot.

Fighting Breaks Out in Lexington and Concord

At dawn on April 19, some 700 British troops arrived in Lexington and came upon 77 militiamen gathered on the town green. A British major yelled, "Throw down your arms! Ye villains, ye rebels."

The heavily outnumbered militiamen had just been ordered by their commander to disperse when a shot rang out. To this day, no one knows which side fired first. Several British volleys were subsequently unleashed before order could be restored. When the smoke cleared, eight militiamen lay dead and nine were wounded, while only one Redcoat was injured.

The British then continued into Concord to search for arms, not realizing that the vast majority had already been relocated. They decided to burn what little they found, and the fire got slightly out of control. Hundreds of militiamen occupying the high ground outside of Concord incorrectly thought the whole town would be torched. The militiamen hustled to Concord's North Bridge, which was being defended by a contingent of British soldiers. The British fired first but fell back when the colonists returned the volley.

This was the "shot heard 'round the world" later immortalized by poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. (Emerson was not the only artist moved to depict the battle; painter Amos Doolittle, known as "The Revere of Connecticut," created four celebrated engravings of the Battles of Lexington and Concord.)

After searching Concord for about four hours, the British prepared to return to Boston, located 18 miles away. By that time, almost 2,000 militiamen-known as minutemen for their ability to be ready on a moment's notice-had descended to the area, and more were constantly arriving.

At first, the militiamen simply followed the British column. Fighting started again soon after, however, with the militiamen firing at the British from behind trees, stone walls, houses and sheds. Before long, British troops were abandoning weapons, clothing and equipment in order to retreat faster.

When the British column reached Lexington, it ran into an entire brigade of fresh Redcoats that had answered a call for reinforcements. But that did not stop the colonists from resuming their attack all the way through Menotomy (now Arlington) and Cambridge.

The British, for their part, tried to keep the colonists at bay with flanking parties and canon fire. In the evening a contingent of newly arrived minutemen from Salem and Marblehead, Massachusetts, purportedly had a chance to cut off the Redcoats and perhaps finish them off. Instead, their commander ordered them not to attack, and the British were able to reach the safety of Charlestown Neck, where they had naval support.

Effects of Lexington and Concord

The colonists did not show great marksmanship that day. As many as 3,500 militiamen firing constantly for 18 miles only killed or wounded roughly 250 Redcoats, compared to about 90 killed and wounded on their side.

The relatively low casualties of the Battles of Lexington and Concord proved they could stand up to one of the most powerful armies in the world. News of the battle quickly spread, reaching London on May 28. A few months later, the British narrowly defeated the Americans in Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, the low number of casualties once again showing the strength of patriot forces. By the following summer, a full-scale war of independence had broken out, paving the way for the creation of the United States of America.

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Battles of Lexington and Concord - Winner, Date, Summary | HISTORY

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The Battles of Lexington and Concord, fought between colonial militiamen and British Redcoats on April 19, 1775, kicked off the American Revolutionary War.

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Battle of Saratoga  September and October, 1777,

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Battle of Saratoga  September and October, 1777,

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The Battle of Saratoga occurred in September and October, 1777, during the second year of the American Revolution. It included two crucial battles, fought eighteen days apart, and was a decisive victory for the Continental Army and a crucial turning point in the Revolutionary War.

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The Battle of Saratoga was a turning point in the Revolutionary War. The American defeat of the superior British army lifted patriot morale, furthered the hope for independence, and helped to secure the foreign support needed to win the war.

How it ended

American victory. One of the most decisive American battles of the Revolutionary War, Saratoga ended British general John Burgoyne's attempt to control the Hudson River Valley. The outcome convinced the Court of King Louis XVI that the Americans could hold their own against the British Army, sealing the alliance between America and France. American general Benedict Arnold was hailed as a hero for his bravery on the battlefield, a reputation lost with his later betrayal and defection to the Royalists.

In context

In 1777, British strategy called for a three-pronged attack on New York, with three separate armies converging near Albany. For British general John Burgoyne, moving south from Canada with 7,500 men, the Hudson River Valley became the critical route for the invasion. By August, Burgoyne had captured Fort Ticonderoga, defeated fleeing American troops at Hubbardton (Vermont), and occupied Fort Edward, on the edge of the Hudson River. After a contingent of Burgoyne's troops was defeated in the Battle of Bennington, his reduced forces marched south toward Saratoga in early September.

General Horatio Gates and his American soldiers had built formidable defenses on Bemis Heights, just south of Saratoga overlooking the Hudson. The two armies engaged in combat at Freeman's Farm on September 19. While the British held off the Americans, their losses were great. Burgoyne's battered forces dug trenches and waited for reinforcements, but none came. Burgoyne launched a second, unsuccessful attack on the Americans at Bemis Heights on October 7. With no means of escape, Burgoyne eventually surrendered to Gates on October 17. The victory persuaded France to sign a treaty with the United States against Britain. France's financial and military support contributed to Washington's victory at Yorktown in 1781, which effectively ended America's War for Independence.

Before the Battle

By mid-September, Burgoyne's forces reach the northern outskirts of the small village of Saratoga. General Horatio Gates, commander of the Northern Department of the Continental Army, is ready with 8,500 men. He is supported by Gen. Benedict Arnold and by Col. Daniel Morgan, leader of 500 Virginia riflemen. To disrupt the British advance south, Gates has his troops erect defenses on the crest of Bemis Heights, a series of bluffs from which both the Hudson River and the road can be seen. From there, American artillery will have the range to hit both the river and the road. In order to attack, the British will have to use the road, as the forest and vegetation to the east are too dense to permit effective troop movements.

The Americans also erect a fortified wall a little less than a mile from Bemis Heights. The wall extends about three-quarters of a mile, creating a line shaped like a large "L". Twenty-two cannons are placed behind this defense, providing the Americans with ample artillery cover.

During the Battle

September 19. Burgoyne divides his army, numbering about 7,500, into three columns. He wants to use each column to probe American defenses. Col. Daniel Morgan's light infantry engages with the center column near Freeman's Farm. It is a hotly contested fight, with the field changing hands several times. By evening, the British, reinforced by 500 German Hessians, hold the field, but the action has blunted their forward motion. Having lost almost 600 troops and expecting to be reinforced by Gen. Henry Clinton, coming from New York City, Burgoyne choses to dig in.

Until Clinton relieves them, British forces are literally trapped in the New York wilderness with scant supplies. Food stores dwindle, and the troops are reduced to half-rations. While the British remain stuck, the American army is replenished and grows to 13,000 strong.

October 7. The British are looking for a way out of their predicament. Burgoyne sends a reconnaissance force to attack Americans at Bemis Heights, but the patriots get wind of the plan and force the British to withdraw to their well-defended Balcarres Redoubt. Several hundred yards north is the Breymann Redoubt, defended by only 200 German soldiers and officers. It is no match for the Americans. With Gen. Benedict Arnold riding out in front to rally the troops, the patriots capture the redoubt. Arnold is seriously wounded in the left leg.

Aftermath

On October 8, the British army attempts to escape north, but a cold, hard rain forces them to stop and encamp near the town of Saratoga. Hungry, weary, and out of options, they dig in and prepare to defend themselves, but within two days the Americans have them surrounded. On October 17, after negotiations, Burgoyne's army surrenders.

After the British humiliation at Saratoga, Horatio Gates earns widespread public support and runs a brief clandestine campaign to replace George Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. The plot fails, and Washington maintains his post. The British army became prisoners of war. Burgoyne returned to England in the spring of 1778. He is severely criticized for his actions at Saratoga and receives no future commands in the British Army.

Impressed by the Patriots' resistance to Britain, France signs a formal Treaty of Alliance with the Americans and the balance of the war tips in their favor. The Spanish and Dutch later provide support to the Americans as well, hoping to weaken British domination in Europe.

Saratoga: Featured Resources

Related Battles

New York | September 19, 1777

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The Battle of Saratoga was a turning point in the Revolutionary War. The American defeat of the superior British army lifted patriot morale, furthered the hope...

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Second Continential Congress  May 10, 1775

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Second Continential Congress  May 10, 1775

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As promised, Congress reconvened at Independence Hall in Philadelphia as the Second Continental Congress on May 10, 1775–and by then the American Revolution had already begun.

The British army in Boston had met with armed resistance on the morning of April 19, 1775, when it marched out to the towns of Lexington and Concord to seize a cache of weapons held by colonial Patriots who had ceased to recognize the authority of the royal government of Massachusetts.

The colonists drove the British expedition back to Boston and laid siege to the town. The Revolutionary War had begun.

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The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that met beginning in May 10, 1775, soon after shooting in the American Revolutionary War had begun. It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met briefly during 1774. The second Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved slowly towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. By raising armies, directing strategy, appointing diplomats, and making formal treaties, the Congress acted as the de facto national government of what became the United States. With the ratification of the Articles of Confederation in 1781, the Congress became known as the Congress of the Confederation. While the Articles would ultimately prove unsuccessful and lead to the formation of the United States Constitution, the Congress helped to found the American democracy.

Membership

When the Second Continental Congress convened on May 10, 1775, it was, in effect, a reconvening of the First Continental Congress: many of the same 56 delegates who attended the first meeting were in attendance at the second, and the delegates appointed the same president (Peyton Randolph) and secretary (Charles Thomson). Notable new arrivals included Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and John Hancock of Massachusetts. Within two weeks, Randolph was summoned back to Virginia to preside over the House of Burgesses; he was replaced in the Virginia delegation by Thomas Jefferson, who arrived several weeks later. Henry Middleton was elected as president to replace Randolph, but he declined, and so Hancock was elected president on May 24.

Delegates from twelve of the Thirteen Colonies were present when the Second Continental Congress convened. Georgia had not participated in the First Continental Congress and did not initially send delegates to the Second Continental Congress. On May 13, 1775, Lyman Hall was admitted as a delegate from the Parish of St. John's in the Colony of Georgia, not as a delegate from the colony itself. On July 4, 1775, revolutionary Georgians held a Provincial Congress to decide how to respond to the American Revolution, and that congress decided on July 8 to send delegates to the Continental Congress. They arrived on July 20.

Its predecessor, the First Continental Congress, had sent entreaties to the British King George III to stop the Intolerable Acts and had created the Articles of Association to establish a coordinated protest of the Intolerable Acts; in particular, a boycott had been placed on British goods. That First Congress provided that the Second Continental Congress would meet on May 10, 1775, to plan further responses if the British government had not repealed or modified the Intolerable Acts. By the time the Second Continental Congress met, the American Revolutionary War had already started with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The Congress was to take charge of the war effort. For the first few months of the struggle, the Patriots had carried on their struggle in an ad-hoc and uncoordinated manner. They had seized arsenals, driven out royal officials, and besieged the British army in the city of Boston. On June 14, 1775, Congress voted to create the Continental Army out of the militia units around Boston and quickly appointed Congressman George Washington of Virginia over John Hancock of Massachusetts as commanding general of the Continental Army. On July 6, 1775, Congress approved "A Declaration by the Representatives of the United Colonies of North-America, now met in Congress at Philadelphia, setting forth the causes and necessity of their taking up Arms." On July 8, Congress extended the Olive Branch Petition to the British Crown as a final attempt at reconciliation. However, it was received too late to do any good. Silas Deane was sent to France as a minister (ambassador) of the Congress. American ports were reopened in defiance of the Navigation Acts.

Although it had no explicit legal authority to govern, it assumed all the functions of a national government, such as appointing ambassadors, signing treaties, raising armies, appointing generals, obtaining loans from Europe, issuing paper money (called "Continentals"), and disbursing funds. The Congress had no authority to levy taxes, and was required to request money, supplies, and troops from the states to support the war effort. Individual states frequently ignored these requests. According to one historian, commenting on the source of the Congress' power:

The appointment of the delegates to both these congresses was generally by popular conventions, though in some instances by state assemblies. But in neither case can the appointing body be considered the original depositary of the power by which the delegates acted; for the conventions were either self-appointed "committees of safety" or hastily assembled popular gatherings, including but a small fraction of the population to be represented, and the state assemblies had no right to surrender to another body one atom of the power which had been granted to them, or to create a new power which should govern the people without their will. The source of the powers of congress is to be sought solely in the acquiescence of the people, without which every congressional resolution, with or without the benediction of popular conventions or state legislatures, would have been a mere brutum fulmen; and, as the congress unquestionably exercised national powers, operating over the whole country, the conclusion is inevitable that the will of the whole people is the source of national government in the United States, even from its first imperfect appearance in the second continental congress.

Declaration of Independence

Congress was moving towards declaring independence from the British Empire in 1776, but many delegates lacked the authority from their home governments to take such an action. Advocates of independence in Congress moved to have reluctant colonial governments revise instructions to their delegations, or even replace those governments which would not authorize independence. On May 10, 1776, Congress passed a resolution recommending that any colony lacking a proper (i.e. a revolutionary) government should form one. On May 15 Congress adopted a more radical preamble to this resolution, drafted by John Adams, in which it advised throwing off oaths of allegiance and suppressing the authority of the Crown in any colonial government that still derived its authority from the Crown. That same day the Virginia Convention instructed its delegation in Philadelphia to propose a resolution that called for a declaration of independence, the formation of foreign alliances, and a confederation of the states. The resolution of independence was delayed for several weeks as revolutionaries consolidated support for independence in their home governments. Congress finally approved the resolution of independence on July 2, 1776. Congress next turned its attention to a formal explanation of this decision, the United States Declaration of Independence, which was approved on July 4 and published soon thereafter.

Articles of Confederation

The Continental Congress was forced to flee Philadelphia at the end of September 1777, as British troops occupied the city. The Congress moved to York, Pennsylvania, and continued their work.

After more than a year of debate, on November 15, 1777, Congress passed and sent to the states for ratification of the Articles of Confederation. The issue was large states wanting a larger say, nullified by small states that feared tyranny. Jefferson's proposal for a Senate to represent the states and a House to represent the people was rejected (a similar proposal was adopted later in the United States Constitution). The small states won and each state had one vote. Congress urged the individual states to pass the Articles as quickly as possible, but it took three and a half years for all the states to ratify the Articles. Of the then thirteen states, the State Legislature of Virginia was the first to ratify the Articles, on December 16, 1777, and the State Legislature of Maryland became the last to do so, on February 2, 1781. In the meantime, the Second Continental Congress tried to lead the new country through the war with borrowed money and no taxing power.

Finally, on March 1, 1781, the Articles of Confederation were signed by delegates of Maryland at a meeting of the Second Continental Congress, which then declared the Articles ratified. On the next day, the same congressional delegates met as the new Congress of the Confederation. As historian Edmund Burnett wrote, "There was no new organization of any kind, not even the election of a new President." It would be the Confederation Congress that would oversee the conclusion of the American Revolution.

Dates and places of sessions

May 10, 1775 - December 12, 1776, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

December 20, 1776 - March 4, 1777, Baltimore, Maryland

March 5, 1777 - September 18, 1777, Philadelphia

September 27, 1777 (one day only), Lancaster, Pennsylvania

September 30, 1777 - June 27, 1778, York, Pennsylvania

July 2, 1778 - March 1, 1781, Philadelphia

History of the United States (1776-1789)

Timeline of United States revolutionary history (1760-1789)

References

Burnett, Edward Cody. The Continental Congress. New York: Norton, 1941. ASIN: B000O05KBU

Cogliano, Francis, D. Revolutionary America, 1763 - 1815. Taylor and Francis, 2007. ASIN: B000OI0HXI

Fowler, William M., Jr. The Baron of Beacon Hill: A Biography of John Hancock. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980. ISBN 978-0395276198

Further reading

Adams, Willi Paul. The First American Constitutions: Republican Ideology and the Making of the State Constitutions in the Revolutionary Era. U. of North Carolina Press, 1980. ISBN 0742520692

Cogliano, Francis D. Revolutionary America, 1763-1815: A Political History. London: 2000. ISBN 0415180570

Ford, Worthington C., et al. (ed.). Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789. (34 vol., 1904-1937) (online edition) Retrieved July 9, 2008.

Force, Peter (ed.). American Archives. 9 vol. 1837-1853, major compilation of documents 1774-1776. (online edition) Retrieved July 9, 2008.

Henderson, H. James. [1974] 2002. Party Politics in the Continental Congress. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-8191-6525-5

Kruman, Marc W. Between Authority and Liberty: State Constitution Making in Revolutionary America. U. of North Carolina Pr., 1997. ISBN 0807847976

Maier, Pauline. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. Random House, 1997. ISBN 9780679454922

Miller, John C. Triumph of Freedom, 1775-1783. 1948. ISBN 0313207798

Montross, Lynn. [1950] 1970. The Reluctant Rebels; the Story of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789. Barnes & Noble. ISBN 0-389-03973-X

Rakove, Jack N. The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress. Knopf, 1979. ISBN 0801828643

External links

All links retrieved January 25, 2023.

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The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that met beginning in May 10, 1775, soon after shooting in the American Revolutionary War had begun. It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met briefly during 1774.

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When British General Lord Charles Cornwallis and his army surrendered to General George Washington’s American force and its French allies at the Battle of Yorktown on October 19, 1781, it was more than just a military win. The outcome in Yorktown, Virginia marked the conclusion of the last major battle of the American Revolution

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On October 19th, 1781 the most decisive and influential battle in American history came to an end. The stunning defeat of Lord Cornwallis's British army, to the combined effort of George Washington and Comte de Rochambeua's American and French forces in a decisive victory. The victory at Yorktown cemented American independence as more than an idea and led to the official end of the American war for Independence in 1783.

The first steps to the battle of Yorktown didn't start in Yorktown, but rather started in Rhode Island. In 1780, 5,500 French troops under the command of French General Rochambeua arrived at Rhode Island to assist the colonial forces. . These troops were to reinforce George Washington's smaller army of 3,000 men. Washington and Rochambeau immediately started planning their next attack on the British. Conflict between the two leaders began immediately. Washington wanted to attack the British forces deployed in New York, hoping with the combined strength of both the American and French forces could win a decisive battle in the northern colonies. Rochambeau wanted to support American general and fellow Frenchman Marquis de Lafayette. Ultimately the decision would be up to none of them, instead it would be up to Admiral Comte de Grasse.

Meanwhile in the south major decisions were being made. Lord Cornwallis, his army still reeling from the battle of Guilford's Courthouse, planned to attack the much weaker American army led General Lafayette at Richmond. Lafayette, knowing of the British advance, retreated and combined forces with General Stueben and General Wayne's forces. Cornwallis, upon hearing this, pulled his forces back to Yorktown and prepared defense for a potential attack.

At Rhode Island news of Admirals de Grasse intentions had arrived. He would set sail for the Chesapeake Bay outside of Yorktown. Washington and Rochambuea, upon hearing this, knew they had a unique opportunity to encircle and eliminate Cornwallis and his army. They began to march their armies south, setting their sights on Yorktown. Orders were sent to a reinforced Laffayette to prevent Cornwallis from escaping. Victory had to be achieved here, the nation's fate was at stake.

Admiral de Grasse's fleet arrived in the Chesapeake Bay, blocking off all of the British ships and the British army and preventing an escape from Yorktown by sea. With Laffayette blocking off Cornwallis by land Cornwallis was encircled. The British did attempt to break out by sea, sending an armada from New York with the purpose to break through the French fleet and relieve Cornwallis. The French and British vessels had a brief exchange resulting in the British fleet retreating back to New York. Cornwallis would remain trapped.

In late September Washington and Rochambuea arrived at Yorktown, and immediately began to prepare for a siege. Allied forces, now numbering 7,800 Frenchmen and 11,100 Americans faced off against some 8,000 British troops. Cornwallis, realizing the total number of troops he would be facing, pulled his forces from all but two of the outer defenses to create a tighter defense within the city. French and American forces were quick to capture the two remaining forces, using an advance of "cold steel", keeping their muskets unloaded until they reached the redoubts. After a brief firefight the redoubts were captured and cannons were deployed in the abandoned defenses. Washington fired the first shot that would start the siege. The capture of the redoubts meant that Yorktown would be bombarded from the south and east, and to the west by the French fleet. After several failed attempts to break out across the York River by the british Cornwallis made the decision to surrender. On the 17th of October a drummer boy and an officer waving a white handkerchief emerged over the defense. After two days of negotiations the siege was over, and as a indirect result, the American Revolution itself would be over.

The victory of the American and French armies over the British boasted American morale at home while stifling British support at home. Lord North, the British Prime Minister, upon hearing the news exclaimed saying "Oh God, it's all over"(Gov.Uk, Past Prime Ministers). When the British army surrendered to the Americans it was said that some had tried to break their rifles while others appeared to weep or be drunk. In total the American and French forces captured 8,000 troops, 214 artillery pieces and thousands of muskets.

Even though the siege had major significance, casualties were relatively low with only 60 French deaths, 28 American deaths and 107 British deaths. The losses suffered by the combined effort of the American and French troops were not in vain. The loss made the British open negotiations with peace being agreed to in 1783. Yorktown is often remembered as the killing blow to the British and was the battle that turned an independent United States from a distant dream into a reality. In the words of American General Marquis de Lafayette "Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country" (Cornell University, Lafayette Collection, 2006).

Information sources:
https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/siege-of-yorktown https://www.battlefields.org/learn/revolutionary-war/battles/yorktown https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/yorktown-campaign/ https://www.history.com/news/american-revolution-french-role-help https://www.nps.gov/york/learn/historyculture/history-of-the-siege.htm https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/frederick-north https://rmc.library.cornell.edu/lafayette/exhibition/english/introduction/index.html

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October 19, 1781: The Battle of Yorktown

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On October 19th, 1781 the most decisive and influential battle in American history came to an end. The stunning defeat of Lord Cornwallis's British army, to the combined effort of George Washington and Comte de Rochambeua's American and French forces in a decisive victory. The victory at Yorktown cemented American independence as more than an...