Surrender at Yorktown

Near this spot on the afternoon of October 19, 1781 – as silence prevailed among the Allied soldiers and onlookers – all eyes were trained on the approaching British troops. Cornwallis, sending word that he was ill, appointed his second in command, Brigadier General Charles O’Hara, to surrender his sword. O’Hara mistakenly approached French General Rochambeau to present the sword. He was quickly corrected and led to Washington, the supreme commander of the Allied forces. Washington refused to take the blade from O’Hara’s “good hand,” and referred him to Major General Benjamin Lincoln, his second in command. Lincoln, accepting it, escorted O’Hara to an open field about one and a half miles from here, where British and German soldiers, regiment after regiment, grounded their arms.