Yorktown and the Siege of 1781

In the autumn of 1781, the world's most powerful army found itself trapped in a muddy Virginia peninsula, besieged by an alliance of colonial and French forces that had somehow, improbably, come together. Yorktown was not merely a battle; it was the end of Britain's hope for victory in America, the moment the Revolutionary War effectively concluded, and the culmination of a diplomatic and military gamble that spanned continents. Charles E. Hatch Jr.'s account, part of the National Park Service's Historical Handbook Series, traces the strategic chess game that brought General Cornwallis to Yorktown and the relentless Allied siege that broke him. The narrative introduces the key players whose decisions shaped this moment: Washington, forced to coordinate continental armies across vast distances; the French Count de Rochambeau, whose troops proved indispensable; and Cornwallis himself, whose fatal choice to dig in at Yorktown became his undoing. Hatch illuminates the logistical marvel of the joint French-American operation, the trench warfare tactics, and the political calculations that made the victory possible. This is military history at its most concrete: not abstract cause and effect, but the specific maneuvers, supply lines, and leadership decisions that decided a nation's fate. For visitors to Yorktown battlefield, students of American history, or anyone curious about how the impossible became inevitable, this slim handbook offers a grounding in the campaign that secured American independence.