Battle Of Yorktown Research Paper

If you were to do a word association with High schoolers today and you said the BAttle of Yorktown most would respond with Hamilton: an American Musical. While the lyrics tell the story of the Battle of Yorktown some details are left out. The Battle of Yorktown was the most important win for the Americans during the revolutionary war. The events leading up to the battle, the battle itself and the events following all helped shape United States History. The battle of Yorktown occurred on September 28, 1951. By the time the Battle of Yorktown occurred revolutionary war had already been raging on for about six years. At this point in the war, the British armies were stuck in towns near the coast. “Meanwhile, the French reinforcements the Americans had been promised had finally arrived in Rhode Island” (Schulman, Np). For the first time in the history of the war, the French Naval forces in the Western Atlantic out powered the British Naval forces creating a power struggle to have the most superior navy. While the French Navy Held the sea, the French Army completed an eighteen day march from Road Island to White Plains, New York to meet up with their American Allies and prepare for the attack against the British. On September fourteenth Washington would arrive, on September twentieth the …show more content…
The Battle ended with Washington giving the orders to Marquis de Lafayette to take “an American army of 5,000 troops to block Cornwallis’ escape from Yorktown by land while the French naval fleet blocked the British escape by sea” (The Battle of Yorktown). By September 28, Cornwallis and his men had been completely encircled. It took three weeks of non-stop bombardment, to make Cornwallis surrendered to Washington and his armies at Yorktown. His surrender ended the war. There were more than 6,000 British troops that surrendered to the Americans and French on October 17,