on this day seven thousand British soldiers and German Please click the icon to follow us on Facebook.Mercenaries under the command of Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis pulled off a miraculous escape from the siege of Yorktown by crossing the York River to Gloucester Point where the American line was thinly held.

The following day the British Commander-in-Chief in North America Sir Henry Ciinton dispatched a reinforced fleet and seven thousand troops from New York. Ordered to the relief of Yorktown, Admiral Graves set off far too late to prevent a British surrender. Because Cornwallis had been besieged by a double concentration of forces comprising George Washington's Continental Army and the French Fleet which was in firm control of the bay.

And when Cornwallis discovered that Clinton had belatedly sent the reinforcements he had requested, he ordered his troops to return to Yorktown and attempt to pull off a remarkable countersiege that might force a decision in the campaign. Because Washington's force of nine thousand Americans and six thousand French troops were numerically outnumbered by the British and Germans. According to Cornwallis' calculations, it might be just enough to turn the world up-side down.