1781 Rev War newspaper Battle YORKTOWN Virginia begins

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Please visit our EBAY STORE at the link directly below for HUNDREDS of HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS on sale or at auction: /Steve-Goldman-HISTORICAL-NEWSPAPERS_W0QQsspagenameZL2222QQtZkm SEE PHOTO----- COMPLETE ORIGINAL 8 page Revolutionary War newspaper, the London Chronicle (England) dated Nov 20, 1781. Beginning on the front page and continuing for 5 inside page columns is a detailed report of the beginning of the Siege of (and the Battle of) Yorktown, VIRGINIA, the decisive battle that won the Revolutionary War for the Americans and led to the Peace Treaty with Great Britain that formally ended the War ( see below ). HISTORIC news coverage of the beginnning of the end of the Revolutionary War !! The Siege of Yorktown or Battle of Yorktown in 1781 was a decisive victory by a combined assault of American forces led by General George Washington and French forces led by General Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army commanded by General Lord Cornwallis . It proved to be the last major battle of the American Revolutionary War , as the surrender of Cornwallisâe(tm)s army (the second of the war ) prompted the British government to eventually negotiate an end to the conflict. Admiral FranÃ§ois Joseph Paul de Grasse sailed his fleet of twenty-eight warships north toward Virginia. Simultaneously, on 21 August 1781 , Washington began moving his army south. As they marched south, Admiral De Grassesâe(tm)s fleet arrived at Chesapeake Bay . De Grasse defeated Admiral Thomas Graves âe(tm)s fleet in the Battle of the Chesapeake , also known as the âeoeBattle of the Capes,âe and won control of the bay, tby sealing its entrance and stranding Cornwallis from supply by sea. The defeat in Chesapeake Bay was the only major naval defeat suffered by the Royal Navy of Great Britain in the two hundred years of the 18th and 19th centuries. In the late summer of 1781, when George Washington and Rochambeau heard of Cornwallisâe(tm)s encampment in Yorktown , they raced southward from New York to link up with the French fleet under de Grasse in Chesapeake Bay. Washington arrived just in time to bottle-up the British, who were anticipating reinforcements that never came from either General Clinton or the British fleet. On September 28 , 1781 , Washington and Rochambeau, along with La Fayette âe(tm)s troops and 3,000 of de Grasseâe(tm)s men, arrived at Yorktown. With them was the 2nd Canadian Regiment lead by Brigadier General Moses Hazen . In all, nearly 20,000 men converged on the camp established by Cornwallis. With the arrival of these troops, the stranded British forces in Yorktown were outnumbered by a two-to-one margin and were then subjected to heavy fire as work began on a siege line. Offshore, the French fleet effectively blocked aid for Cornwallis, while Washington made life unbearable for the British troops with three weeks of shelling. The Allies placed up to 375 guns, mortars and siege weaponry along their lines to bombard Yorktown. The siege guns fired an average 1.2 shells or bombs every minute, or 1,728 per day. By the time the Siege ended, some 36,288 shots were fired into Yorktown. Although the British had 240 pieces of artillery - consisting mainly of light guns and mortars - they had no horses to drag their guns into position, so they were of little use. Cornwallis, realizing the scope of his predicament, managed to send a message to Major-General Henry Clinton in New York. Clinton promised that a relief expedition carrying 5,000 men would leave by October 5. Meanwhile, the British and Franco-American forces were continued to dig in and improve their respective earthworks. On October 11, the allies started a second siege line only 400 yards (365.8 m ) away from the British forces. Three days later, the French and Americans captured two major British redoubts : the French , under the command of Wilhelm de Forbach , took redoubt 9, while the Americans, under the command of Alexander Hamilton , took redoubt 10. This completed the second siege ... read more

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