NARRATIVE: On the night of October 14, 1781, 400 American soldiers, under the command of Alexander Hamilton, assaulted British Redoubt Number 10 at the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia. Their muskets had no gunpowder but the bayonets were fixed. They crossed the ground, struggled through the wooden abatis, dropped into the ditch and scaled the parapet under fire from the Scottish and German defenders. The defense was spirited until the commanding officer realized he was assailed from two directions and surrendered. A similar assault by French troops took Redoubt Number 9 at the same time.

The combined force of American and French soldiers had surrounded Lord Cornwallis and his army at Yorktown since September 28. With the capture of the redoubts, George Washington was able to extend his trench line and subject the British to horrific bombardment. Cornwallis surrendered on October 16.

Yorktown was the last battle of the Revolutionary War. Cornwallis’s surrender led the British to negotiate an end to the war.

George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, and French General Comte de Rochambeau had outfoxed the British in the Yorktown campaign. The American-French army threatening the British in New York had instead made a stunning march from Rhode Island to Yorktown. The British fleet sent to support Cornwallis had been defeated by the French fleet, which supplied Lafayette with men and artillery. Various additional forces coalesced at Yorktown.

Cornwallis was surrounded and outgunned with no retreat possible. Checkmate.