American Revolution Treaty
The Yorktown Campaign in Virginia in 1781, marked the last great military action in the American Revolution and assured that America would be a free nation.
In late summer 1781, General George Washington, in camp near New York City, learned that the British commander in the southern Colonies, Lord Charles Cornwallis, had failed to destroy the American Army of General Nathanael Greene in the Carolinas. Cornwallis was now retreating to Yorktown, Virginia, to await supplies and new troops from the British army in New York City.
Washington decided to trap Cornwallis at Yorktown. This was no easy matter, since the American Army and their French Allies were scattered all over the place and the French fleet, which would be needed to keep aid from arriving by sea, was in the West Indies.
Somehow, Washington managed to get all the various forces to Yorktown at the same time and the siege began on October 6, 1781. The French defeated the British Fleet, and repeated Allied attacks carried British position after British position. On October 19, 1781, Cornwallis surrendered his 8,000-man army to the 17,000-man Franco-American Army.
When the English marched out to surrender, their band played a popular song called “The World Turned Upside-Down” — and so it had for the British Empire. Although the peace treaty would not be signed until 1783, America had already won its war for independence.