Plan of the siege of Yorktown

This detail from a 1785 map shows the first and second parallel trenches constructed by American and French troops just to the southeast of the British defenses at Yorktown. (Courtesy of the Wooldridge Collection at The Mariners' Museum / October 7, 2013)

When the British army woke up on the morning of Oct. 7, 1781, one of the most decisive moments in the Siege of Yorktown and the winning of American independence had already come and gone.

American and French troops digging under the cover of darkness through a stormy night had completed a crucial 2,000-yard-long trench that would enable them to bring their superior artillery within range of the British defenses.

Two days later those guns would open fire with the first shots in a lethal bombardment that insured the triumph of the American Revolution.

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Barely a week before, Washington and his allied army had marched from Williamsburg, stopping at Endview Plantation as they approached the British defenses along the old Yorktown Road. Taking up the outermost ring of earthworks as their foes pulled back, the American and French troops spent several days sorting out their lines and sizing up the most advantageous positions for their guns before they started digging.

As the Allies prepared to excavate -- and cut down thousands of trees to use in constructing their siege works --the British army under Lord Cornwallis began to slaughter horses that couldn't be fed and threw their bodies into the York River. But the tide washed them back to the beach, compounding the Crown's increasingly uncertain position with the stench of hundreds of rotting carcasses.

No until after hemming in a mounted British force foraging for badly needed supplies outside Gloucester Point did the Allies begin to dig their first trench paralleling the enemy's earthworks on the evening of Oct. 6. According to tradition, Washington marked the importance of the moment with a ceremonial swing of the first pick, followed by wave after wave of soldiers opening up the earth along a 2,000-yard path marked out by the engineers.

In the days that followed, the heavy American and French field guns that began firing on the afternoon of Oct. 9 would prove decisive in forcing Cornwallis to surrender before his stranded army could be relieved.

Equally criticial were the bayonet, musket and sword, which enabled the Allies to storm and take the British defenses at Redoubts 9 and 10 -- then push the tail of a second parallel trench some 400 yards closer to the beleaguered defenders of Yorktown.

But it was the pick and shovel that paved the way for the American victory won by the blade and gun.

This is how the first sign of the British surrender looked to Maj. Ebenezer Denny, a Continental army officer from Pennsylvania who described the Allies' extension of the second parallel to the newly captured redoubts as "Easy digging; light sandy ground."

"In the morning, before relief came, had the pleasure of seeing a drummer mount the enemy's parapet, and beat a parley, and immediately an officer, holding up a white handkerchief, made his appearance outside their works; the drummer accompanied him, beating," Denny wrote in his journal on Oct. 17.


-- Mark St. John Erickson

Just a note:

Several folks in the Williamsburg area are hoping to organize an American Revolution Round Table group.  Their goal is to begin meeting in February 2014 somewhere in the Williamsburg area, site to be determined.

For more information, contact Gerald Holland, president of the Williamsburg/Yorktown Revolutionary War Round Table, at 360-689-4577, or